1

West Bromwich Albion FC / Combined 04/05 + 24/25 XI

« on: December 27, 2024, 05:18:08 AM »

Bit of fun after a comment in the after match thread said we had the worst squad for 20 years. The 04/05 season was of course the Great Escape year. So for a bit of fun how about we come up with a combined XI from that year's squad plus this season's?

I wonder prescribe a number of players from each season, but I would say try to judge the players on their performances in that season (and this season for our current crop). The only other qualifier is that they have to have played for us that season (so Inamoto is in, Sekou Berthe is out; no Daryl Dike either).

I'm about to head to bed so I'll a very quick one to get us started but I reserve the right to change it once I've given it some more thought. One thing I will say is the below is largely based on the positions I remember them playing that year, which makes it a lot harder.

Kuszczak

Furlong
Gaardsoe
Heggem
Robinson

Gera
Mowatt
Molumby
Richardson

Earnshaw
Maja

2

West Bromwich Albion FC / Next Head Coach Thread

« on: December 24, 2024, 11:45:31 PM »

Here you all go...an early Christmas present!

3

West Bromwich Albion FC / The Promotion-O-Meter

« on: October 22, 2024, 05:13:50 PM »

For those who have been on the forum a while, you might remember Political Cake's "Survival-O-Meter", that allowed you to see how our season was tracking to the hallowed 40 points for Premier League Safety.

Well, we're not in the Premier League any more, so why don't we track ourselves vs the Championship.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/markw8141/viz/WBA24-25/WBA24-25?publish=yes

The link above should take you to an online dashboard that I've quickly set up, containing two graphs.

The top graph shows our 5 game running average Points, Expected Goals (xG) and Expected Goals Against (xGA). You can, if you want, untick those on the right hand side filter "Variables for Top Graph",so if you'd rather look at Goals For (GF) and Goals Against (GA) you can, though they aren't doing a five game running total. Please ignore the variables that are labelled "75 Pts", "90 Pts", "95 Pts" - I'll come on to them. Below the filter is a key showing the corresponding colours for each line, which will update as you tick things on/off.

The lower graph is our cumulative points, and really is the spiritual descendent of Political Cake's graph. It tracks our cumulative points across the season, and compares it three different points totals. These have all been calculated as the average points needed over the last 10 years to achieve 6th, 2nd and 1st place. Interestingly, there is a 3 point standard deviation across all three, indicating that being within 6 points either way of that figure should get you there in 95% of seasons. The blue line is this season, and the other three are the reference lines. Maybe I can add previous seasons to the bottom graph to also give a comparison.

All data sourced from fbref.com. I will try to keep it up to date but it does depend on how often we play and what access I have to my laptop!

Anyway, I hope it proves useful. Let me know if there are any questions

4

West Bromwich Albion FC / New Sporting Director - Andrew Nestor

« on: August 15, 2024, 05:05:31 PM »

"We're delighted to confirm Bilkul Football Group CEO Andrew Nestor has assumed the responsibilities of the Sporting Director role at the club, offering support across all its football functions.

Nestor will continue to work alongside Head of Football Operations Ian Pearce, the club’s board, and club administration, with a focus on evolving the sporting strategy for long-term success throughout key areas such as the men's and women's first teams, academy, sporting data and recruitment. 

Andrew and Bilkul Football Group’s Chief Operating Officer, Ashish Patel, were active members of the ownership group prior to its acquisition of the club and have been involved in club operations since the takeover.

Nestor’s immediate focus at the club has been the men's first-team squad, in particular planning strategy, supporting operations and recruitment, led by Ian Pearce, and the men’s first-team technical staff, led by Carlos Corberán.

More information can be found via the link in our bio. 🔗"

https://www.wba.co.uk/news/bilkul-ceo-andrew-nestor-assumes-sporting-director-responsibilities

Interesting he was a Director at Bologna

5

West Bromwich Albion FC / Where will we finish this season?

« on: August 04, 2024, 06:02:18 PM »

Always a tough one when the window isn't shut, but where do you think we'll end up this season?

6

West Bromwich Albion FC / MOVED: Steve Bruce - Manager - SACKED

« on: December 19, 2022, 01:00:25 PM »

This topic has been moved to General Football & Sports.

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=26689.0

7

West Bromwich Albion FC / WBA Next Manager/Head Coach Thread

« on: October 10, 2022, 09:50:22 AM »

Please use this thread to discuss our next head coach/manager

8

West Bromwich Albion FC / MOVED: Pepe Mel

« on: September 22, 2022, 12:20:02 AM »

This topic has been moved to General Football & Sports.

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=12897.0

9

West Bromwich Albion FC / Battle of the Legends: Brunt vs Mozza

« on: February 11, 2022, 09:49:53 AM »

https://www.wba.co.uk/news/brunty-v-mozza-set-september-2022

Albion are delighted to confirm a special match honouring Baggies legends Chris Brunt and James Morrison will take place in autumn 2022
Albion are delighted to confirm a special match honouring Baggies legends Chris Brunt and James Morrison will take place in autumn 2022.

The game, ‘Clash of the Legends: Brunty v Mozza’, will be played at The Hawthorns on Saturday, September 24, during next season’s first international break.

Chris and James have selected The Albion Foundation as their principal charity partner for the fixture, with all profits raised from the day aiding community projects in the local area.

The duo joined Albion in the summer of 2007 and made a combined total of 762 appearances for the Baggies, scoring 87 goals during more than a decade of service to the club.

In a joint statement, the pair said: “We are honoured and humbled to have been offered a charity match by the club at the place we now call home, The Hawthorns.

“We will always be eternally grateful to the club for the loyalty it has shown us both and we are proud to have represented Albion together for so many years. When we arrived here in 2007, we could never have imagined we’d one day be offered something like this.

“During our time with the club we have witnessed first-hand the superb work of The Albion Foundation and it was important to us that the profits earned from our game help support projects and programmes within this community – a community that has made us feel so welcome over the last 14 years.

“We would like to place on record our sincere gratitude to the club for providing us with this special opportunity."

Morrison and Brunt must now address the difficult task of selecting players and managers from their illustrious careers to join them at The Hawthorns, with the debate already underway as to who will play for each team.

The pair added: “We hope to bring as many former Albion players as possible back, and it would be great if we can also get one or two managers involved. There is, of course, also our international team-mates to consider, as well as those we have played with elsewhere domestically. The plan is to put two squads of players together that supporters will really enjoy watching.

“Our intention is to fill The Hawthorns with a family-friendly atmosphere and that will probably include a few surprises along the way. We’re working with the Foundation to ensure there is plenty on offer for the whole family.”

Ticket details for the game will be announced in due course.

10

General Football & Sports / Steve Bruce - Manager - SACKED

« on: February 03, 2022, 06:59:51 PM »

18 month deal, announced on OS and Twitter

11

West Bromwich Albion FC / Summer Transfer Window 2021

« on: August 31, 2021, 01:39:57 PM »

Use this thread to discuss our performance this summer

12

West Bromwich Albion FC / What is "The West Brom way?"

« on: February 10, 2021, 04:19:44 PM »

Thought I'd offer this one out to people.

In the Dowling thread there is talk about style of play, and a long term vision of the club. Now, from being on this forum a long time, I know there's a range of what people would like to see, and what people will tolerate if the results are good enough. I can remember the crowd being frustrated with players under Mowbray passing it around the back, with cries of "get it forward". Equally Pulis' football was pretty categorically disliked.

So, what brand of football do you associate with the club, and would like to see implented here as part of a longer term vision?

13

West Bromwich Albion FC / Players out of Contract

« on: December 04, 2020, 10:10:03 PM »

I was having a browse of TransferMarkt and noticed we have a lot of players in their last year of contract:

Ivanovic (Age 36)
Grosicki (32)
Lee Peltier (33)
Kieran Gibbs (31)
Hal Robson-Kanu (31)
Kyle Bartley (29)
Charlie Austin (31)
Jonathan Bond (27)
Conor Townsend (27)
Kyle Edwards (22)

Plus Filip Krovinovic (25) is on loan.

That's a lot of players, and we have to assume some of them will get contract renewals. There's an article on The Athletic at the moment basically saying how once a player gets into their last year of their contract, the balance of power in negotiations shifts in favour of the player, so they can demand higher wages, or refuse to leave in January so they get a nice signing on bonus when they move on a free in the summer.

I think Townsend is worth keeping, and I feel like there is merit in keeping Edwards, but I wouldn't be sad if the others all went. Regardless of which division we are in, I think more than you'd think will be offered new deals.

14

West Bromwich Albion FC / Loan Manager, Paul Terry, charged with betting offences

« on: November 03, 2020, 11:34:52 AM »

Notification through via The Athletic that our loan manager, Paul Terry (brother of John) has been charged with multiple counts of breaching betting rules

https://twitter.com/SteveMadeley78/status/1323581944752459778?s=19

15

Albion Matchday Forum / MOVED: 29/08/2020 WBA Vs Nottingham Forest (Friendly)

« on: August 29, 2020, 11:43:48 AM »

This topic has been moved to West Bromwich Albion FC .

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=24906.0

16

West Bromwich Albion FC / Squad Nationality & Language

« on: August 13, 2020, 12:42:56 PM »

In the Periera thread, Baggies made a good point that Krovinovic might be kept as he gets on so well with Pereira. Given the latter is our star player, it makes sense to keep them happy and do what we can to get the best out of them.

That got me thinking about potential signings, and I realised we are not a very cosmopolitan team, which may make it difficult to integrate several new players from countries dramatically different to the current squad.

The vast majority of our squad speak English as their first language, only Grosicki, Zohore, Hegazi and Pereira have another language as their first (Polish, Danish, Arabic and Portuguese being their first languages).

Our coaching line-up is a mix of Croats and British, hence we get linked with a lot of Croats.

Footballers are human. We saw last season there were certain cliques etc. New players have to integrate into the social hierarchy of the club. That might be easier for those who already speak a language that is already spoken in the dressing room

17

West Bromwich Albion FC / All WBA goals this season

« on: July 25, 2020, 04:22:39 PM »

 https://streamable.com/s3i2w5

All 77 league goals for us this season

Stolen from here

https://twitter.com/SkyBet/status/1286723571604226050?s=20

18

West Bromwich Albion FC / Official: Grzegorz Krychowiak Signs on loan

« on: August 29, 2017, 08:55:02 PM »

Seems like he's been solidly linked - John Percy broke the news

19

General Football & Sports / Everything you thought you knew about transfers is wrong (probably)

« on: July 07, 2017, 08:54:07 AM »

https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2016/aug/24/transfer-window-market-myths

There are some widely held myths about how the football industry works, especially when it comes to finances. This is largely due to an intentional lack of transparency – mainly regarding transfer fees and wages – that is in stark contrast to the NBA and NFL, where player costs are publicly reported and every deal is viewed through the lens of how it will affect teams’ salary caps. With football clubs privately owned and free from most public reporting standards, fans receive most of their information about player costs and wages through the media.

But why are player costs important? After all, it’s not our money, right. Disregarding that it kind of is our money – the huge increase in Premier League TV revenue, for example, is being paid for through Sky and BT subscription fees from UK viewers – with domestic and Uefa financial regulations, clubs are prevented from spending much more than they earn. In practice, this results in individual spending caps for each team. Understanding how clubs calculate player costs helps us to see how they really value certain players, as well as how the money is being spent, which players provide good value, and which players do not.

Traditionally, in order to report on the financial nature of a particular transfer, a journalist must first have sources who were involved in the deal. That requirement alone means that well over 99% of those writing about football will be left completely in the dark. For those few journalists who have cultivated well-placed sources, the numbers they are told will vary depending on which side of the table the source is on.

If a journalist is trying to nail down the transfer fee, a source on the buying club might just quote the initial fee, whereas a source on the selling club might quote what the fee would be if all of the performance-based add-ons are met (without distinguishing how likely it is that said add-ons will be triggered). Similarly, when trying to find out a player’s wages, a club source is more likely to quote the basic wage, whereas the player’s agent might also include image rights and performance bonuses.

Naturally, these numbers can vary wildly depending on where the information is coming from, and the journalists can only report what he or she has been told. This is why we often see conflicting figures reported, and especially when a player from another European league is bought by a Premier League club.

The journalists covering the selling club will likely report what that club is saying, and perhaps the player’s agent, whereas the journalists here in England naturally have more contacts at the buying Premier League clubs, which can lead to discrepancies in the details.

While those who report on football finances do a good job of shining light on an important area – we would be left completely in the dark otherwise – there are a number of gaps that we, as fans, have collectively filled in with inaccurate myths about how the industry works. As a result, and in light of the transfer market being in full swing, The Set Pieces decided to bust a few myths surrounding the transfer market.

Shirt sales alone do not pay for a superstar’s transfer fee

No club has ever directly recouped a player’s transfer fee through shirt sales. Adidas, Nike, Puma and other kit suppliers get 85-90% of shirt sale revenue and this is the industry standard.

While there are some exceptions – a club such as Bayern Munich, which is part-owned by Adidas, may be given a slightly more favourable revenue share, and generally, once a certain (very large) number of shirts are sold, the revenue split on additional sales will skew more favourably to the club – these are the exceptions to the general rule.

As an example, Manchester United have a 10-year kit deal with Adidas worth £750m. This is one of the largest kit deals in football and easily the largest in the Premier League. However, the primary reason Adidas is paying Manchester United £75m per year is not simply to have a tiny logo emblazoned on United’s kit and use the club for marketing purposes. Of course, being associated with one of the few truly global clubs in football helps them capture market share in emerging markets and further solidify its presence in existing markets. But for the supplier, kit deals are licensing deals, and that’s where the real value lies to Adidas.

Football clubs are, by nature, football clubs. They’re meant to do football things. They don’t have the infrastructure required to manufacture and distribute millions of kits. Many can’t even handle running online shops, the logistics of which they outsource to third parties.

For any cynical readers who may not be so inclined to take our word for it – after all, it is a popular myth – just look at how United and Adidas announced the deal in July 2014, where the partnership is described, quite clearly, as a licensing package. In fact, Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer triumphed the deal as a “collaboration [that] marks a milestone for us when it comes to merchandising potential. We expect total sales to reach £1.5bn during the duration of our partnership.”

Despite the nonsense you may have heard about Zlatan Ibrahimovic shirt sales generating £50m for Manchester United, which would far exceed his wages, it’s simply not true. In fact, United don’t even automatically receive the 10-15% industry-standard royalty payment, no doubt because the up-front £75m annual payment is so large. United’s royalty payment only kicks in once a certain number of shirts are sold.

Just under three million Manchester United shirts were sold last season. As a case in point, let’s assume that Ibrahimovic helps sell an additional 300,000 shirts. A 10% increase is a very optimistic projection, especially considering Ibrahimovic is a Nike athlete and won’t be engaging in any Adidas promotional activities on his own. His image rights deal with United will almost certainly allow the club to feature him in Adidas promotional activities, as long as he appears with at least two other United players and the activity does not imply that Ibrahimovic is giving a personal endorsement to Adidas.

Additionally, while many United fans may choose to buy an Ibrahmovic shirt, over, say, a Chris Smalling shirt, a lot of those fans were already going to buy a shirt in the first place.

Let’s also assume that United’s royalty kicks in after three million shirts are sold, and the club receive a 15% royalty on each subsequent shirt sold. Assuming a price of £70 per shirt, that’s an additional £21m in gross sales from 300,000 shirts. Manchester United’s cut of that would be just over £3m. Now, £3m is not an insignificant amount, but it offsets less than 20% of what Ibrahimovic will likely cost the club this season (wages, agent fee, signing bonus, image rights deal).

So, at best, United are likely to see around £3m in additional revenue. While certainly not a paltry sum, it doesn’t come close to covering his costs, let alone help United earn an additional £50m. Put simply, there’s a reason why Adidas has earned more in the last six months than Manchester United, one of the highest-earning football clubs in the world, has earned in its 138-year existence.

Fax machine use does not hold up transfer deals

All clubs must to designate employees to be “TMS managers”, who are responsible for ensuring that transfers are processed correctly. The ultimate responsibility for training the TMS managers lies with the national FA but in practice the training usually occurs internally at club level, and big clubs often have several employees who have been trained as TMS managers.

Fifa TMS readily admits that the level of training and experience varies quite a bit from country to country, club to club. So, when a club has sub-par training or chooses the wrong employees to take on the role of TMS manager, problems can occur, which was possibly the reason for the failed transfer of Manchester United’s David de Gea to Real Madrid on deadline day last summer.

For anyone interested in learning more about the Transfer Matching System, Gab Marcotti wrote an excellent article in which he interviewed the general manager of FIFA TMS, and I have previously interviewed the head of integrity and compliance.

Net spend is not as important as fans might think

Despite what you may have heard, “net spend” is completely irrelevant to how big clubs do business and is not something they consider when calculating player costs. Consider the following: Manchester United signed Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Borussia Dortmund for £35m. Mkhitaryan will likely be earning the equivalent of at least £180,000 per week over the length of his four-year deal.

In practice, clubs such as United, for whom cash flow is never an issue, often pay the entire transfer fee up front or in a few instalments over a short period of time (less than 12 months). This helps reduce the overall cost of the transfer, and most selling clubs will much prefer to see the entire fee paid quickly, as opposed to several instalments over two or three years.

However, on the books – and this is how clubs actually calculate player costs – United, like every single other football club in Europe’s top eight leagues, will record the transfer fee as £8.75m in each of the next four years, not £35m now.

This is a universal accounting practice called player amortisation, and it is fundamental to how clubs calculate player costs. Rather than recording the entire purchase when it was made, the club will spread the transfer fee over the length of the player’s contract.

Naturally, wages must also be included in the calculation of player costs. Ideally, agent fees and image rights payments will be included as well, but to keep things simple, we’ll focus on the two big expenditures: amortisation and wages.

With Mkhitaryan costing Manchester United £8.75m per year in amortisation and £9.36m in wages (£180,000 per week multiplied by 52 weeks), his overall cost to the club is just over £18.1m per year. That £18.1m per year is what clubs look at with regards to player costs, not just the transfer fees coming in and out.

Let’s compare the Mkhitaryan deal to that of another recent Premier League signing from the Bundesliga: Arsenal’s £30m purchase of Granit Xhaka from Borussia Mönchengladbach. Xhaka signed a five-year deal and will reportedly earn around £125,000 per week at Arsenal. The transfer fee will be spread out over Xhaka’s contract at £6m per year (£30m divided evenly over five years). So including Xhaka’s wages, the overall cost to Arsenal is £12m per year.

While the transfer fees for Mkhitaryan and Xhaka are similar, Mkhitaryan is costing Manchester United 50% more than Xhaka is costing Arsenal on an annual basis.

To further illustrate why net spend doesn’t tell you anything about how clubs do business, consider United’s signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a free transfer. While the “net spend” on that deal is zero, he adds well over £10m to Manchester United’s player costs this year.

If those were the only transactions United and Arsenal made this summer, their “net spend” figures would be similar (£35m and £30m, respectively). However, after applying the business and accounting principles that the clubs themselves use, we see that Arsenal added £12m to its total player costs for the coming season, while United added over £28m. Rather than a difference of less than 20% in actual spending (which is what net spend would show), the actual difference is over 200%.

Clubs do not have transfer budget, war chests and kitties

If anyone tries to tell you “big club x” has “y amount” to spend they are likely talking nonsense. Ask them to show their work on how they arrived at that number.

As we just discussed, there’s a lot more that goes into player costs than transfer fees. Unless the number being offered up clearly includes wages (which is more than half of the equation), and ideally at least a nod towards agent fees and image rights payments, you can safely disregard it as not reflective of that club’s available resources to bolster its squad.

Players are not alone in using agents

Clubs frequently employ agents as well to help find buyers and extract top fees for players they want to sell. The tandem of Kia Joorabchian and Giuliano Bertolucci are notable examples of agents who work on behalf of clubs. They helped Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur sell Ramires and Paulinho to Chinese clubs last year. Manchester United also used agents to help sell Robin van Persie and Nani to Fenerbahce.

It’s worth noting, though, that Joorabchian and Bertolucci are also Ramires’ and Paulinho’s agents, and Manchester United hired Van Persie’s agent for the Fenerbahce deal.

In the case where the club asks the player’s agent to also represent them, the agent should always make sure the player understands the natural conflict of interest that exists, recommend that the player seek independent advice, and get the player’s approval in writing. When the player’s agent acts on behalf of the club, it will be the responsibility of the club to pay the agent for his or her services, rather than the player.

Image rights are worth more than you think

Rarely mentioned when discussing transfers and wages (notable exceptions include when a manager’s former club managed to retain the trademark to his name or when one of the best players in the world stands trial for tax fraud), the image rights deal between the player’s image rights company and his new club comprises a significant portion of the player’s compensation and the overall cost to the club.

Image rights deals can be complex and, depending on which side of the table a journalist’s source was sitting on when the deal was negotiated, the image rights may not be included in the information they receive when they ask how much the player will be earning on his new deal.

For example, a player might be earning £85,000 per week in wages but, after including image rights payments, the player is likely earning the equivalent of over £100,000 per week (usually it’s around an additional 20% plus a share of the net profits the club receives from appearance and endorsement activities the player carries out on its behalf).

Bonus payments conditioned upon team and individual success as well as agents fees can also significantly add to a club’s cost with regards to securing a player’s services on the transfer market.


Sorry for the long wall of text but I found this article from last year and it goes quite far in showing how we, as far, really don't know how transfer dealings take place.

20

West Bromwich Albion FC / MOVED: average salary of premier player

« on: June 13, 2017, 08:14:55 AM »

This topic has been moved to General Football & Sports.

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=20329.0

21

West Bromwich Albion FC / MOVED: Let's get a new striker then! But who makes the grade?

« on: January 20, 2017, 10:09:15 PM »

This topic has been moved to Albion Transfer Forum.

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=19702.0

22

West Bromwich Albion FC / Albion launch talent identification website

« on: July 02, 2016, 02:29:33 PM »

http://www.wba.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/albion-west-brom-academy-3164041.aspx

Launch of new website geared to recruitment

ALBION’s Academy today launches a new Talent Identification website as part of its ongoing search for the best and brightest young footballers in the West Midlands and beyond.

The website provides information about the Academy, the numerous success stories the club has enjoyed over recent seasons, as well as the many ways in which young players can take part.

A number of new player development programmes and player recruitment projects have been launched for the 2016/17 season - all designed to give young players the best possible opportunity to be spotted by and succeed at our EPPP Category 1 Academy.

All of these programmes are based exclusively at the Club's Academy facility, providing professional player development and assessment free of charge.

The aim is to find and work with the best and most hard-working players in the local region and beyond, seeking to add to our burgeoning reputation for helping to produce top-class Premier League footballers.

“We passionately believe that the Premier League stars of tomorrow are out there playing grassroots football now,” said Matt Richardson, Assistant Academy Recruitment Officer.

“Football potential comes in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Our player development programmes are designed to give everyone taking part the best possible chance to improve and succeed.”

“Alongside the work of our fantastic team of scouts, we hope that our new recruitment pathways will give lots more young players in the region the chance to live out their footballing dreams.”

Do you think you have what it takes to play in the Premier League? Are you a West Bromwich Albion star of the future? If so, the Albion Academy would love to hear from you!

To find out more about the Academy and the many new development projects available, click here.


I think it's great we have all these programmes: late developers, shadow academy...great ideas. Anyone going to apply for an assessment day?

23

Announcements, Feedback & Questions / We're back!!

« on: May 16, 2016, 05:36:14 PM »

As many of you will have noticed the forum has been down the past couple of days. This was a server-side problem and unfortunately couldn't be resolved by the admin/mod team.

It's obviously not been ideal timing what with the Liverpool game but we're back now.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

24

West Bromwich Albion FC / Official site: Goal of the Season vote

« on: May 05, 2016, 10:39:49 PM »

http://www.wba.co.uk/news/article/vote-201516-west-brom-albion-goal-of-the-season-3097206.aspx

Simply select your choice below to cast your vote

BAGGIES fans, what is your 2015/16 West Bromwich Albion Goal of the Season?

It's that time of the year when the montage music is wheeled out, highlights reels are clipped and we all get to sit back, stop what we're doing and enjoy three minutes of the finest net-busters of the campaign.

Voting for your official Albion Supporters' Player of the Season has now closed but this is your second chance to get involved and shape our end-of-season awards.

We've shortlisted the best 10 strikes below, in date order, and all you've got to do is watch the video and pick your favourite.

Voting will remain open until 12noon on Sunday (May and the winners of each of our awards will be announced soon.

Now, it’s over to you....

Goals here

NB. The poll on this site is just so you can see how fellow members have voted. You need to go to the WBA official page (link above) to vote in the official competition.

25

West Bromwich Albion FC / Sporting Club Albion reach Women's FA Cup Quarter Final

« on: April 01, 2016, 12:04:05 PM »

Saw this article on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35924978

"Lucy Bronze, I'm coming for you."

Sporting Club Albion striker Leigh Dugmore does not mince her words when discussing the prospect of facing the Manchester City and England defender in the Women's FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday.

Dugmore, Albion's leading goalscorer with 18 in 19 games this season, has gone so far as to tweet Bronze exactly those words.

That message from the distribution warehouse worker from Birmingham, and the determination behind it, sums up just how the lowest-ranked side left in this season's Women's FA Cup are treating their tie against one of Britain's richest and most glamorous sides.

"The best thing we can do is be confident," said 25-year-old Dugmore, who was playing for Leafield Athletic in the fourth tier of English football last season, while Bronze was starring for England at the Women's World Cup in Canada.

"If we pull out all the stops, stick together and play at our best, then we have a chance. If they underestimate us, and they will, we can surprise them.

"I tweeted Lucy Bronze that I'm coming for her. She is a great player and this is a great chance for all of us to see if we can step up.

"It's the biggest game of most our lives - it will definitely be mine."

But has Bronze replied? "No," laughs Dugmore, sounding slightly disappointed.

Albion, an amateur side from the third tier who train three hours a week and whose management team are volunteers, are associated to men's Premier League side West Bromwich Albion through its foundation.

The FA Cup is famed for pitting the unheralded against the game's giants - the poor from the lower reaches of the football pyramid against the rich with an international tapestry of talent at their disposal.

But rarely will the divide be as stark as at the Academy Stadium on Sunday when Sporting Club Albion, whose players pay to play, face one of the few fully professional women's football teams in the country.

To say they are in a different league is an understatement. Their respective league competitions do not even start in the same year - Albion's campaign is already seven months old, while City's Women's Super League season started a week ago.

"It's an astronomical mountain in front of us," says Albion manager Graham Abercrombie. "We all watched the World Cup last year - the players will be rubbing shoulders with their heroes."

'Fighting the same fight'

Five City players helped England claim bronze at the 2015 Women's World Cup - a third-placed finish that saw a spike in interest in the domestic game.

There was a major increase in WSL 1 attendances, with City boasting average home crowds of 1,500. Albion have also enjoyed a rise in interest, as Abercrombie estimates average attendances went from 20 to about 100 this season.

"We are all fighting the same cause, no matter the level," said Abercrombie.

"The game is fantastically growing, but at our level we are still paying to play, that is the bottom line. We have players in Sheffield who are doing 160-mile round trips to get to training.

"The commitment level of the group is second to none in the country when you talk about the financial and physical commitment of the players."

Abercrombie says both the staff and players at City are "heroes" in the English game as the club is playing a leading role in taking women's football into a new era.

Players now earning as much as £65,000 a year have been in a similar position as Albion's players, forking out subs and paying for fuel to get to training and games.

An unexpected journey

Albion are the only side from outside the WSL to beat a team from the top two divisions in this season's competition, ousting newly promoted WSL 2 side Sheffield FC in the fourth round.

Dugmore admits few could have expected them to reach the quarter-finals and that it has already been an "unbelievable" run.

"We have proven people wrong by beating Coventry, Sheffield and Brighton to get here," she said.

Abercrombie, who works as a school games organiser for the Youth Sports Trust - while also moonlighting as a graffiti artist, among other things - insists his side will not be overcome by the occasion.

"We appreciate who we are up against, absolutely," he said. "But we are not daunted, we are not going to get there and freeze. We are going there to try our absolute best.

"We are all excited, but the challenge has also really focused the players. There is an ambitious bunch here and they are hungry."

Destination: Wembley

Six other sides are also trying to reach the semi-finals this weekend, with a place in a Wembley final now just two wins away.

Arsenal host Notts County in a repeat of last year's WSL League Cup final, while Sunderland host Reading in another all-WSL 1 tie.

But holders Chelsea, like City, face lower-league opposition in WSL 2 outfit Aston Villa.

Villa edged past Everton 1-0 in round five to earn a trip to face the 2015 double winners at Wheatsheaf Park.

"We know we can't underestimate Aston Villa. Obviously we've got to defend our title," Chelsea defender Hannah Blundell told BBC Sport.

"Anything can happen in the cup and we have got to concentrate and stick to our strengths.

"Our behind-the-scenes staff have been doing their research and tipping us off about certain things.

"Last year's final was an amazing experience and Wembley is a massive occasion. We want to experience it again this year."

Villa have started 2016 with one win and one defeat from their first two league games.


Good to see other areas of WBA doing well, especially seeing as they are really punching above their weight.