Despite rancid home form for most of the season West Brom’s target of Premiership salvation has almost been achieved again.

Overview

West Brom’s third successive season of Premiership football, and barring a remarkable series of results that’s what they’ll have to look forward to next term, comes at a time when their nearest and bitterest rivals Wolves are stricken and taking on water. Isn’t life amusing sometimes?

Not only that but the decision to remove Mick McCarthy as manager at Molineux which in turn lead to a protracted and unsuccessful pursuit of potential replacements and eventually wound up with the current situation where a coach with no experience as a number one whatsoever has presided over six straight defeats and, shortly, an inglorious demotion started with a 5-1 home defeat by the Baggies.

The chairman at Wolves, Steve Morgan, has taken his fair share of stick about all of this and on the face of it it’s fully justified. But, in my opinion, it wasn’t only the massive home defeat and complete annihilation by the Baggies that played on his mind but also the way Jeremy Peace has run things at The Hawthorns in recent times. Essentially if you’re outside the top six in the Premiership then West Brom are a club you should aspire to.

Morgan looked ridiculous for pursuing first Alan Curbishley, then Neil Warnock, then Gus Poyet, then Brian McDermott, then Alan Curbishley again and finally Steve Bruce before just sticking his existing first team coach in charge. He looked ridiculous, but let’s stop and analyse for a moment. Why should Morgan do what QPR have done this season and throw money at short term fixes? Curbishley wouldn’t come because Wolves were insisting on a 50% wage drop if the team was relegated. At QPR if somebody refuses to sign you take that clause out and sign them anyway, maybe Wolves deserve credit for telling them to stick it. They’ll be relegated of course, but they can then appoint a manager in the summer with a clean slate, a division for the winning and a sound financial situation.

It’s this healthy attitude that medium and long term financial solidity is worth more than a series of expensive short term fixes that has served West Brom so well. Three times they’ve been relegated from the Premiership, twice they’ve bounced back immediately and once they came back after two seasons and only an against-the-run-of-play defeat in the play off final against Derby prevented them making it three straight returns from three attempts. They’ve not been afraid to spend a big transfer fee, and they committed the thick end of £6m to bring in Reading’s Shane Long last summer, but there has never been a panic buying session to try and maintain Premiership status, and consequently there has never been any need for an end of season fire sale when they haven’t made it.

Would QPR really have been any worse off this season had they not signed Jay Bothroyd, DJ Campbell, Anton Ferdinand, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Luke Young, Bruno Perone, Brian Murphy, Jason Puncheon in the summer and simply spent money on Long instead?

The Baggies are now surely going to stay at this level for a third straight season for the first time in the Premiership era. Their response to this has been to slash season ticket prices for next season to boost average attendances which will in turn justify the extension of the stadium up to a 30,000 capacity. It’s revolutionary stuff this. No doubt in the meantime they’ll pick up the odd shrewd addition to their team – Ben Foster (loan) and Gareth McAuley (free transfer) have been roaring successes since arriving last summer.

In a way it’s a shame to be hailing a team and club that has next to no chance of winning an actual trophy simply because it’s well managed financially and able to stay in the Premiership. But when the former is so rare and the latter is the chief aim for so many clubs you cannot help but admire the way they’re going about things in this corner of the Midlands.

Interview

How would you assess the Albion season as a whole? Success?

In that our ultimate goal for the season was merely securing survival, then it has definitely been a success. With only five games left, it now looks almost certain that we have secured a record third successive stint in the Premiership. This is what Roy Hodgson was tasked to do at the start of the season, and he has achieved it without the need for a ‘great escape’. In achieving this we have an impressive away record (the best outside the top five), beaten Wolves twice, including that now infamous 5-1 demolition at Molineux, overcome thirty plus year hoodoo’s by winning at both Stoke and Villa away, and we defeated Chelsea, which saw the departure of Andre Villas Boas. As things stand the Albion are set to finish as the top team in the Midlands, a scenario which has not happened in my lifetime. All in all, I personally believe this amounts to a very successful season for a club like ours.

However, despite this, there is still a definite feeling amongst some supporters that something hasn’t quite worked out this year. Maybe it is the shock that for the first time in ages we are not embroiled in a relegation battle or a promotion push to get the pulses racing, but there is a sense that we haven’t quite fulfilled our potential. Finishing eleventh last season raised expectations, our squad was improved and high-quality early performances against Manchester United and Chelsea did little to diminish these. However, our home form has been frankly dreadful, the quality of football has been at times insipid, given the context of the free-flowing Barca-lite fare we were treated to under previous managers, and the team has lacked consistency – after beating Chelsea, we didn’t win again for another five games. So, all in all, there have been many positives to take from this season, but with a few sharp reminders about how tenuous our position in the Premiership is.

Why have you struggled to find form at home? Have there been signs recently that things are improving on that front?

As mentioned above, there have been fans grumblings about how this season has panned out, and it is perhaps our poor home form which is a key contributor to this. Although our away form has been excellent, we have currently only won five games at home – so the vast majority of supporters haven’t had much to cheer about all year. I am not entirely sure of the reasons behind this, but there are probably three mitigating factors.

First, we have mainly been set up to play counter-attacking football, and against many teams arriving at the Hawthorns, this simply hasn’t worked too well. Secondly, Hodgson had tinkered with the formation a lot, and in many games we have started with a 442 which, with the personnel available and the strength in depth of our midfield, has not succeeded. And thirdly, because we haven’t been winning many home games, the fans have been impatient and quick to turn on the players, which has at times created a bad vibe at the Hawthorns.

It has though been improving in recent weeks. We have started to play 451 more often, and we have also got lucky. Chelsea should have easily beaten us given the chances they had, but somehow didn’t; and only last week when Blackburn came to town, the 3-0 scoreline masked the true picture: they dominated large parts of the game, and our victory was thanks only to some dreadful defending, an inspired Ben Foster performance, and the inability of their strikers to take some golden opportunities. Our inconsistency at home has been a weakness and also a major disappointment this season.

How do you rate Roy Hodgson's performance as manager? He's looked close to a breakdown once or twice this season.

I couldn’t think of a better manager for West Brom. Yes, he has in a few games made some bizarre decisions in terms of formation and personnel, and has a worrying tendency not to make subs until far too late in some matches, but I can't really hold these against the man. I think his high expectations for the team have been the reason behind some of his major tantrums – it was the Swansea game where he repeatedly smashed his head against the dugout, and at Newcastle he sought violent retribution against any inanimate object in the technical area.

However, the talk of the England job has got many fans seriously worried. There is no one else out there of his stature, experience and worldly contacts who would come to West Brom, and why would they? But Roy has a knack of turning teams like ours, with players who are ready to listen and adopt his training methods, into clubs that can have a moderate degree of success, for the budget available. If he leaves, then I think the club will be taking a few steps backwards. Thankfully, it was announced this week that he has begun talks about a new contract. Hopefully he sees sense, and realises that the media would crucify him again if he took the England job, and that the Albion is the perfect place for him to stay…

Who have been the stand out performers so far this season? Who's going to win Player of the Year?

First and foremost it has to be Ben Foster. He has been so impressive this season. It is imperative over the summer that we convince Birmingham City to turn his loan into a permanent deal. Foster is an excellent shot-stopper and some of his saves this season have been crucial to us winning games – for example his point blank double save against Blackburn undoubtedly turned the game in our favour. He must easily have earned us 12 points this season. Furthermore, his distribution is superb, especially compared to the dross served up by Carson and Kiely in previous seasons. Foster always looks for the early option, and his throwing and/or kicking is almost always spot-on. I would be very surprised if he doesn’t win player of the year.

Other players that have stood out this season are Marc-Antoine Fortune and to the surprise of many fans, Gareth McAuley. McAuley has been a revelation, especially as he came to the club as an almost unknown, yet he has performed very well and formed a solid partnership with our mental Swede, Jonas Olsson. Also Fortune has been excellent since January. At the start of the season he had been frozen out of the team and before Christmas was sent on loan to relegation threatened Doncaster. I have no idea what was in the Yorkshire air during his stay, but he returned a man transformed. He has since spearheaded our 451 brilliantly, chasing lost causes, harrying defenders, holding the ball up and bringing our attacking midfielders into the game. Fortune doesn’t score enough, but he has been crucial to our better performances since the winter.

Who are the weak links? Where does the team need strengthening? Any word on summer targets yet?

The weak link is, and I know I mentioned this in my last summary for LoftForWords, Steven Reid. He just isn’t good enough at this level, so I would say we definitely need to be looking for a right back, who ideally has a bit of pace. Other players who are not necessarily weak, but have failed to convince this season are people like Nicky Shorey, Somen Tychoi and I hate to say this Peter Odemwingie. After getting his huge pay rise, Odemwingie has been frustratingly inconsistent, and although he has netted nine goals this season, for far too many games he has barely looked bothered.

First of all, we have very little money for transfers, so I would suspect that unless a top class player is identified, then most of the incoming players will be on bosmans, which was the case last season. As noted above, we have to secure Ben Foster permanently. Rumours are that £6 million could win us his services from Birmingham City, and if so then we must make this a key transfer priority. If not, we have been linked to Allan McGregor, the Rangers keeper, as well as his teammate Steven Naismith. Otherwise, it is all a bit quite on the transfer front, perhaps down to the uncertainty of Roy Hodgson’s position. But I would say that this summer West Brom has to secure Foster, a new right back, maybe a more creative midfielder (who has pace) and another striker. Yet, as has been the case over the last few seasons, all we need are small incremental steps and not wholesale changes. As the club continues to evolve, I do not doubt that the hard work of our director of football Dan Ashworth will help the Albion unearth a few more gems such as Youssouf Mulumbu or Jonas Olsson.

Medium to long term aims for the club at this point?

I think that West Brom’s future aim is to secure our position in the Premiership, and through continual, gradual evolution of the squad, the training and youth facilities, and the stadium emulate the success of clubs like Stoke and Fulham. With the resources currently available to us, and with no sign of an oil oligarch buying us as their new fashion accessory, mid-table obscurity or Europa League places are the highest we can realistically go. This model has made us a highly respected club for our financial prudency, and there is very little threat of the team going bankrupt. Next season, we will still probably still make survival a top priority, but if we continue in the way we have been going, this shouldn’t be too difficult… It would be nice in the next few seasons to take the two cup competitions a bit more seriously, as there is nothing better than a good run and a trip to Wembley; success is still measured by trophies, even if it is the Carling Cup, because let’s face it, we won’t be winning the Premiership anytime soon.

The board has made two big announcements about the future direction of the club in the last few weeks. The first, is that they have signalled their intentions by investing massively in youth development in order to secure the new elite status and further improve the clubs facilities – given that ten years ago, the team trained at Aston University’s playing fields, this is a massive leap forward. The club has also announced that next year’s season ticket prices have been slashed, which will hopefully boost crowds and generate more interest especially amongst younger supporters. The board has publicly stated that the aim of this initiative is to build the support base, and generate enough of a buzz in the area (and to get people hooked on going regularly) so that the club can rebuild the Halfords Lane stand and turn the Hawthorns into a 30,000 capacity stadium. This is an excellent idea, and one that I personally think can only be commended, for very few clubs in the premiership would put supporter’s needs before financial considerations. I think that the future looks bright for us, and maybe, just maybe we have put that yo-yo tag to bed. That said, as a long suffering West Brom fan, you never know…

Manager

It’s getting to the stage now where it’s easier to say which teams Roy Hodgson hasn’t managed than list the ones he has. He’s on 18 clubs and three countries now and shows no signs of either slowing down, or losing his ability to drill a side remorselessly into achievement.

Hodgson has been coaching since 1971 but after initial spells with Maidstone and Carshalton his time was spent almost exclusively on foreign soils through until 2007. He is extremely well regarded in Sweden where he took perennial relegation strugglers Halmstad and turned them into two time league champions, and Malmo with whom he won the league five years in a row, the subsequent end of year play off twice and the Swedish Cup twice as well. As the Swiss national manager he qualified easily for USA 94 from a group containing Portugal and Italy and made the last 16 in the States, he also qualified them automatically for Euro 96 but left before the tournament to take over at Inter Milan.

Inter have been throwing money at Italian football for years under the ownership of Massimo Moratti without ever winning anything until their main rivals were all found guilty of bribing referees and docked points and Roberto Mancini took over. Prior to that Hodgson built a team that won the UEFA Cup in 1997, their only prize of the early Moratti years, but left before they reached the final.

Despite all of this, opportunities in England were few and far between. A brief and unsuccessful spell with cash strapped Bristol City in the 1980s was about it until 1997 when Blackburn came calling for his services. Former title winners in decline, Hodgson initially arrested Rovers’ descent by finishing sixth in the Premiership and qualifying for Europe but was then sacked three months into the following season with the club bottom of the league. He’d have to wait almost another ten years before a team in his homeland took a chance on him again.

In the meantime he won the Danish league with Copenhagen, endured an unhappy four months at Udinese, spent time as caretaker manager back at Inter and had a season with Grasshoppers in Zurich. He then coached the United Arab Emirates, a spell he sums up as follows: "That was a period where I didn't know where my career was going. But all these experiences enrich you and it was good to know I could get my message to players who many say are uncoachable. It's hard work; they're basically lazy. But I had them drilled and pressuring opponents almost like an English team. Most coaches who go there are just fannying around, but it's not my nature.”

He managed Finland but couldn’t qualify them for a tournament for the first time in their history and was linked with the England job on more than one occasion before finally getting a second crack at the Premiership in 2007 with Fulham. That seemed like a lost cause to begin with, the damage done by Lawrie Sanchez’s ludicrous belief that reassembling his Northern Ireland side at club level would be enough to compete in the Premiership seemed terminal but Hodgson pulled off an unlikely escape that included rare away wins at Man City and Portsmouth as part of a 12 point haul from the final five matches that rescued them. He went on to lead Fulham first into Europe, and then through a marathon run in the Europa League to a final with Athletico Madrid which they lost in extra time.

West Brom picked him up midway through last season and he lead them to comfortable safety before reshaping the side this summer.

This is, clearly, a very good CV. He’s experienced football management through four decades and in eight different countries. He’s managed national sides on three occasions, achieving more than was expected in each appointment. He’s English, his teams play a simplistic but nonetheless attractive football and he has succeeded in the Premiership twice recently with two of its more unfashionable members. This makes him a dark horse for the current England position and while everybody is, rightly, assuming that Harry Redknapp is just going to walk into the position come May Hodgson’s cleaner record away from the game may aid his cause..

And yet, support is thin on the ground for him to succeed Fabio Capello. Hodgson still has the Blackburn Rovers spell held against him in some quarters, but more pressingly his as yet unmentioned abject failure with Liverpool last season seems to be undermining the excellent work done in the other 20-odd jobs he’s held since 1971. Never mind that Liverpool was being run into the ground by a pair of clueless American clowns or that Hodgson was left to pick up the pieces of a squad assembled by Rafael Benitez who, in his latter days on Merseyside, operated in the transfer market like somebody who’d never seen a game of football before drawing random names and transfer fees out of a hat while under the influence of bootleg Vodka – how many £7m Spanish left backs can one team possibly need? No, Liverpool are massive and terribly important, and Hodgson was rubbish. Apparently. Whisper it quietly, but despite spending the thick end of £100m on players in less than 12 months King Kenny Dalglish has done little better since taking over from him.

For me the fear I would have of making Hodgson the England manager is, strangely, what his Fulham players said about him. He was magnificent at the Cottage, saving a dead and buried team and building them into Europa League finalists. But the players there spoke of having to buy into his philosophy 100% for it all to come together – his initial results at Fulham were very poor with just nine points won from his first 13 league games and an FA Cup defeat by Bristol Rovers. Danny Murphy, when times were good, described monotonous training sessions built entirely around repetitive drilling of shape and pattern of play. The Fulham players, who achieved more than anybody ever thought possible under Hodgson, spent quite a lot of their time bored. It worked, but they didn’t really seem to know how or why it worked.

At Liverpool, as well as the ludicrous boardroom situation and horribly unbalanced squad, there were egos – egos don’t like standing out in the rain for long periods of time being put through the same simplistic pattern of play drill time after time after time. Sadly for Hodgson the England squad would win World Cups for the rest of time if the prize were handed out for ego. Is Hodgson going to find a group of players in that England squad happy to buy into his philosophy and monotonous drilling? H didn’t at Liverpool.

He’s found groups of players happy to do it all over the world but wherever he has been successful the same sort of things have applied – never won the league before, perennial under achievers, relegation favourites, never qualified for an international tournament before and so on. Hodgson is a man who gets the best out of underdogs who’ve tried everything else and are therefore willing to try him. England persistently underachieve, but three days being drilled by Roy Hodgson is far more likely to lead to “JT” leading his fucking players’ delegation in revolt yet again than achieve results in my opinion.

I’d go for Redknapp despite a veritable walk-in wardrobe of skeletons ready to haunt him if the FA does take the chance. But that says far more about the tossers that play for our country than it does about Roy Hodgson.

Scout Report

Last season, when West Brom finished eleventh, they were an extremely settled team. You knew you were going to be facing up to a 4-5-1 formation, you knew Peter Odemwingie was going to be the lone striker, and you knew they were going to be both difficult to break down and strong on the counter attack.

The first change this season was with Odemwingie. He’s scored nine times but been nowhere near as consistent as he was last term – partly distracted by speculation linking him elsewhere, but mainly because his role in the team changed when Shane Long arrived so he wasn’t in that effective lone striker position any more. Recently Hodgson has returned to the 4-5-1, and lo and behold home form has started to improve at last – but it’s actually Fortune playing up front on his own more often than not now after earlier spending time on loan at lowly Doncaster in the Championship. That said when I’ve seen him play he does have the Jay Bothroyd problem of not wanting to get his nose under the cross bar. Consequently West Brom, like so many teams I’ve seen this season including our own, struggle to get sufficient bodies in the penalty box when attacking from wide areas.

When I saw them at Wolves in February the opposition was so poor that the game was hardly worth watching from a scouting point of view, but I was impressed with Fortune in attack and the way he continually released Jerome Thomas and Odemwingie into dangerous space in the channels. Odemwingie was on the scoresheet that day in a 5-1 win, but I often found his final ball to be a selfish one – usually a shot, often when there were better options available.

With QPR’s recent counter attacking style this could be an intriguing and tense game because the Baggies have played similarly when I’ve seen them this season. This may be why they haven’t done so well at home – in a defeat at The Hawthorns by Everton that I struggled to stay awake through the two sides barely crossed the halfway line all afternoon until Everton upped it in the closing stages and won. West Brom are set up very much like an away side.

They scored twice from corners at Molineux and with Liam Ridgwell, Gareth McAuley, Fortune and most of all Swede Jonas Olsson around that’s no surprise. QPR fans only really have happy memories of playing against the giant Swedish centre half – it was he who headed into his own net under heavy duress from Kaspars Gorkss in a 2-2 draw on our last visit to The Hawthorns two seasons ago. But given QPR’s lack of height, and the way they have struggled to contain the likes of Christopher Samba at set pieces this season, it’s highly likely that we’ll be cursing him rather than thanking him this Saturday.

Whether attacking or defending a corner or wide set piece Olsson is either fouling or being fouled. He’s never just unmarked or not involved or with his eyes purely focussed on the ball. At Aston Villa earlier this season, against a much bigger and more physical team than we possess, he terrorised both the home side and the referee in what became an ongoing farce that resulted in a ludicrous penalty being awarded in his favour by linesman Darren Cann who is on the line this Saturday too.

I would say keep an eye on him this Saturday, but given referee’s apparent willingness to let him do what the hell he likes in either penalty area I’d probably advise against it because it will just drive you mad. He loiters around the back post more often than not so watch out for him there.

Olsson is joined in defence by a couple of signings that I just cannot believe the Baggies ever made. Gareth McAuley is the other centre back, a Northern Irish international who never impressed me as part of a porous Ipswich defence in the division below and somehow earned a move to the Premiership regardless and has been one of their standout performer this term.

Credit Hodgson though for shipping out the division’s worst goalkeeper Scott Carson at the first possible opportunity and replacing him with Ben Foster who, disgraceful England withdrawal apart, is a keeper with a lot going for him. Carson treated QPR to two goals on the Baggies’ last visit here as the R’s won 3-1 – I can’t see Foster doing likewise this weekend especially given his form in the recent win over Blackburn.

If West Brom are awarded a penalty on Saturday don’t despair too quickly. Odemwingie has missed two of his last four and Christ Brunt’s effort at Aston Villa earlier this team was so far off target even he couldn’t help but laugh.

Links >>> Official Website >>> Express and Star, local paper >>> WBA Unofficial Forum >>> West Brom Mad >>> Baggies Blog

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Pictures – Action Images

Photo: Action Images

TacticalR added 00:57 - Apr 14 These oppo reports are excellent. And thanks to Matthew Graham for his interview. I have seen West Brom play well and play badly this season. Shane Long looked good against us at Loftus Road. We can only hope that they show some of their bad home form aginst us on Saturday. By the way, regarding Gareth McAuley, I wonder if the problems of 'the porous Ipswich defence' had more to do with our old friend Damien Delaney and the man-management skills of Roy Keane?

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Kaos_Agent added 01:26 - Apr 14 Great report Clive. It's nice to see a well-run club get rewarded with expanded training facilities and a bigger stadium without breaking the bank. QPR apparently has a bigger bank, but needs to resolve its youth facility and stadium needs too.
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