The Dark Before the Dawn
A hideous season is now behind West Bromwich Albion - the work to avoid another must begin immediately and with lessons learned
At last, for West Bromwich Albion, the bleak season of 2025/26 has been consigned to history.
Somewhat fittingly, it ended disappointingly last weekend. A 2-1 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday that brought back memories of just how grim it had all been for the Baggies under previous head coaches Ryan Mason and Eric Ramsay. Two soft goals conceded (one of them to former Albion midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah), and a tragically limp attacking performance where even Albion’s 1 came via a pathetic attempted set piece delivery, that fortunately fell kindly via a deflection for Karlan Grant to stab home. Did that lead to a rousing attempted come back? Did it heck.
James Morrison’s 12-game tenure through to the end of the season was bookended by listless 2-1 defeats away to teams ultimately relegated from the Championship. Thankfully, the ten games in-between were an unbeaten run that ensured Albion didn’t drop too, despite the EFL docking the club two points in the meantime. That run of performances and results deservedly led to Morrison getting the gig full time, a two-year deal to lead the Baggies into next season and, fingers crossed, for those two years and more successfully.
The last time Albion finished 21st in the second-tier, it was the beginning of both the 21st century and of a new era under a manager who would become pivotal in the clubs history. Gary Megson had taken the reigns in early March and steered the club to safety, by making a previously soft side suddenly much harder to beat and ready to get competitively stuck in. 26 years later, Morrison repeated the trick.
If he can repeat what Megson did after that, he’ll go down in Albion folklore - even more than he already has, given he’s been at the club as a successful player and then coach for nearly two decades.
The chance to continue has been handed to Morrison, deservedly so. After much of the season was spent treading water under Mason, then nearly drowning under Ramsay, it turned out the right man for the job was in the building all along. A fortunate outcome too, given owners Bilkul Albion have not established a positive track record of hiring head coaches to date.
The rescue from the relegation scrap was sensational, and now Morrison needs to be supported to avoid his team ending up in the same tedious melee next season. The good news is that he has already formed a template on which to build. You don’t see many teams play 4-4-2 anymore, yet Morrison’s Albion found the balance every team desires playing in that formation; devilishly difficult to break down, whilst still being dangerous in attack. This was aided by Morrison finding the right partnerships in each area of the team.
The system worked best with most of the width on the right - Danny Imray, the best attacking full back seen at Albion in years, pushing forward along with an out and out winger in Jed Wallace, both able to deliver crosses for the forwards. On the left, Isaac Price would naturally drift into midfield while full back Callum Styles would judiciously pick his moments for when to spring forward on the overlap or when to just sit and be available to recycle possession. In central midfield the industrious engines of Jayson Molumby and Ousmane Diakite provided steel and stamina, necessary when up against the majority of teams who would play three in midfield. At centre back, Nat Phillips and George Campbell were both commanding aerially and crucially, Campbell’s pace offered genuine covering protection to the slower Phillips, and allowed the whole defence to step up higher, enabling the rest of the team to press with more confidence. Up front, any two from the the three rotated forwards Aune Heggebø, Daryl Dike, and Josh Maja offered muscular physicality as an outlet duo who would press off the ball and threaten from crosses and set plays.
These 11 players, along with goalkeeper Max O’Leary and stand in central midfielder Alex Mowatt, were the core group who Morrison trusted almost exclusively to claw Albion to survival. When Wallace got injured, Molumby was pushed out wide and Mowatt came into the side in central midfield. The rest of the squad available to Morrison were primarily young lads, who he did not want to thrust into a relegation battle. Their day may come, but Mozza needed men in this situation.
The reason for his trust in that core group was laid bare in the Sheffield Wednesday game. Swapping out just two of them - Phillips and Molumby, replaced by Alfie Gilchrist and Ollie Bostock - exposed weaknesses that even the worst team in the Championship could take advantage of. Without Phillips’ leadership and aerial prowess, Albion messily conceded twice from set pieces. Without Molumby’s tenacity and non-stop running, Albion looked sluggish. Throughout the game the team looked inept in attack, and that didn’t improve whatsoever when Tammer Bany and Grant were introduced at half time along with Dike. Grant did score with an opportunistic toe poke from a set piece that fell kindly to him, but otherwise delivered his standard meek left wing performance. Bany was eager but his first touch often let him down and he doesn’t appear to possess the physical qualities needed in the Championship. Wednesday sat deep and easily repelled the predictable, ponderous attempts Albion made to break into the final third.
Okay, it was a dead rubber game after survival had already been earned, but it highlighted that Morrison needs greater depth in his squad next season, and that’s while he still has the soon to be out of contract Dike, Maja, Wallace, Grant, and O’Leary around. It wouldn’t be surprising if one or two of them sign new deals at The Hawthorns, but most are high earners (with concerning injury records) on the kind of contract the club can no longer offer, so don’t be surprised should most if not all need to be replaced. Imray has been on loan and impressed so much that the club are apparently very keen to keep him - hopefully a deal can be done there, even if simply another loan spell from his parent club Crystal Palace.
Over to you, Director of Footballing Operations Ian Pearce. But may I recommend learning some lessons from the past two years recruitment - here’s what I’d venture as the “don’t do this again” list of actions:
Don’t sign six centre backs in one window like you did last summer - Campbell, Phillips, Gilchrist, Charlie Taylor, Chris Mepham, and Kristian Bielik. Signed to play in a back four. Attempts to play any of them at full back didn’t work and we don’t want to see that anyway, it was okay for surviving in the Premier League under Tony Pulis but in the Championship we like full backs who can get forward and support attacks.
Don’t sign Aston Villa players on loan. In case you’re unaware, Albion fans don’t like Villa and don’t want their club to develop their youngsters, not even when they’re a former Baggie from a family of Baggies like Jamal-Jimoh Aloba. It’s even worse when they turn out to be rubbish players like Lewis Dobbin or Samuel Iling-Junior. Stop it.
Don’t sell key players and then fail to replace them adequately. Everyone understands why Tom Fellows was sold for much needed profit to support the clubs financial situation, but effectively replacing him with Iling-Junior was madness. Selling Darnell Furlong and then just expecting one of the centre backs to fill in was also poor squad planning.
Don’t keep Grant - it’s been six years of “Klarna”, the best of which for Albion was the one when he got turfed out on loan to Cardiff. Signed for £15m to be the supposed centre forward who would score the goals Albion needed in the Premier League, Grant ended up being a jobbing Championship left winger of little end product. Don’t keep Maja or Wallace either, both have shown quality at times but we need more pace and they’re expensively slow and injury prone players.
Do try to re-sign Imray and O’Leary, and Dike too if he wants to stay but on reduced and realistic terms.
Do sign players with more pace and attacking adventure, especially on the wings to compete for a place with Price and Mikey Johnston, and a quick forward who can get in behind defences would be ideal too.
By all means do keep shopping in Norway, given Heggebø and Torbjorn Heggem have been good signings. The profit made on Heggem was impressive, and Heggebø was Albion’s top scorer this season - not bad for his first season in the Championship, and after a well earned break this summer I believe he will kick on and improve further next term.
The club would do well to keep hold of coach Matt Gill too, if possible - behind the scenes he appears to have been an established, quality coach on Morrison’s staff. If he doesn’t stay however then a good replacement for him is added to the list of vacancies in the coming weeks.
No doubt recruitment will not be easy against the backdrop of financial difficulty that remains at Albion - but hopefully, worries around that can now reduce to some extent. Shilen Patel and his board have done much to remedy the situation inherited when they bought the club, and even though that still could not prevent the points penalty for a PSR breach this season, the responsible work undertaken will set Albion onto a safer financial footing moving forward. How much freedom that offers the club to spend in this summers market however, we will have to wait and see - you can’t rule out the possibility of Albion selling further first team players if there is reasonable interest in their services.
If the club can spend, and spend smart, then there can be optimism that next season will be much improved in comparison to this one. It’s too early to make predictions, as we don’t know what the squad will look like yet, but in Mozza we trust off the back of his sterling survival success and his stellar reputation as a true Albion man, which provides fan-backing and optimism that can be built on to ensure that at the very least, Albion progress back toward the top half of the Championship, where their history demands should be the lowest aspiration allowable at this famous old club.
Let’s hope this season was the dark before the dawn, and that Jimmy can be the new Gary.
Let me know your thoughts on the summer ahead - who would you let go? Who should Albion seek to sign that would fit Morrison’s style of play? Comments welcome as always dear reader!
Nice one Dan, bang on, cheers 👍👊
Excellent piece Dan. Agree 100%