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West Bromwich Albion FC / Coaching/Backroom Staff

« on: June 26, 2021, 03:50:20 PM »

The following is from the Training Ground Guru website:

"Nick Davies has left West Brom after three years as their Head of Performance. The decision follows the appointment of Valerien Ismael as Head Coach last week, with both club and practitioner deciding now was the best time for a parting of the ways.

Davies joined the Baggies under Darren Moore in June 2018 and has worked under a total of four managers (the others being Jimmy Shan, Slaven Bilic and Sam Allardyce).

The Welshman is highly experienced, having been Head of Sport Science at West Ham, Norwich, Birmingham and Charlton. Ismail left Barnsley to become Baggies boss on a four-year contract on Thursday."

Plenty of fans will probably welcome this and see it as no great surprise, but I hope they've got a replacement waiting in the wings given that pre-season training starts on Monday.

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General Football & Sports / Quiz Ball

« on: January 27, 2018, 03:23:37 PM »

I'm sure many of you have never heard of this quiz which only ran for 6 years from 1966-1972, although I'm sure posters of the right vintage will remember it!

Quiz Ball featured 2 teams featuring 3 members of a football club plus a celebrity fan, who had to answer questions in order to score goals. Difficult tackle questions could be attempted by the other team to prevent a goalscoring opportunity. I think resurrecting this with modern technology would be a great idea. Here's the very first show on BBC iPlayer as broadcast in 1966, featuring Arsenal v Nottingham Forest:

Link: Quiz Ball first show

Although the 1960s show is very dated in many respects, hopefully some of you will appreciate the overall concept.

Albion did feature on Quiz Ball - here's a photo of an Albion team (presumably some time after we'd won the FA Cup) from a later series. Note the improved "pitch" with player figurines on it! Am I correct in recalling that Jeff Smith was a local journalist? If so, not quite a celebrity then?!

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Big Dave

« on: December 15, 2017, 06:12:29 PM »

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but it's been announced today that Big Dave is going to be a first team coach until at least the end of the season, with AP saying there probably won't be any other changes to the coaching set-up before then.

AP said: "I have known Darren for a while but this has been my first opportunity to work with him and I have been very impressed with what he has brought to the group. He is well respected in the dressing room and we have given him specific duties which he has taken on very well. I am not thinking of making any other changes before the end of the season. I am not looking to put a label on Darren but he will be working as a first team coach".

Good news IMO

Link: Official Site

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Announcements, Feedback & Questions / westbrom.com doesn't work with Firefox Quantum??

« on: November 18, 2017, 10:12:45 AM »

Firefox has upgraded itself to Firefox Quantum on my PC this morning and, when I load the westbrom.com main page, I just get a blank screen. Everything else I've tried so far has been OK and westbrom.com still works OK in IE (hence me being able to post this). Is anyone else having this problem?

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Post transfer window squad

« on: September 01, 2015, 06:24:48 PM »

On the basis that it doesn't look like we're signing anyone else in this window, here's our squad until January:

Keepers: Foster, Myhill, Lindegaard
Defenders: Olsson, Chester, Brunt, Pocognoli, Gamboa, McAuley, Dawson, Evans
Midfielders: Yacob, Morrison, Gardner, McClean, McManaman, Fletcher, Gnabry, Sessegnon
Forwards: Rondon, Lambert, Anichebe, Berahino

That's 23 players, but that figure includes 3 goalkeepers and 3 players who are more or less frozen out (Pocognoli, Gamboa and Sessegnon).

I don't think anyone can claim that the squad is top heavy with players. What we still don't have in my view is:

- Any competition of Premier League quality for Brunt at left-back.
- Any competition of Premier League quality for Dawson at right-back (based on Chester looking so uncomfortable when he played there, to the extent that he was dropped for the next game).
- A creative central midfield player to help us address the alarming issues we saw against Port Vale and Stoke.
- If Berahino continues with his tantrum long term, or is frozen out regardless, we're going to struggle in attack.

All in all then, ending up with such an unbalanced squad means that the transfer window, not for the first time, has ultimately been a failure, made all the worse for the promises of signings we would be pleasantly surprised by and the comments of both Pulis and Peace that we needed to bring in more players.

Not good enough. Pulis must now try to find a way to win over the players who he's frozen out (he must take the blame for that), as the squad is otherwise wafer thin.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Formation

« on: August 10, 2015, 10:10:51 PM »

It's interesting that people have been crying out for strikers and natural wide players to be signed, which we've done, and then people are queuing up to criticise a 4-4-2 formation. We now have 3 strikers that are worthy of starting and we have 3 natural wide players, so we need to find the formation that works for the players we've brought in. If you don't like 4-4-2, how would you accommodate them? Rondon? Gnabry? How are you going to line up with them in the side?

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West Bromwich Albion FC / The new season starts today - how are you feeling about Albion as things stand?

« on: August 16, 2014, 08:22:31 AM »

I've put the options in alphabetical order, so no possibility of bias! Hopeful and Optimistic are quite similar, but I regard the latter as being the more positive of the two whilst the former is more wishful than expectant!

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Poll: Should Downing and Kiely be kept on in our new coaching set-up?

« on: June 10, 2014, 09:01:01 PM »

Hopefully this is all clear enough. I've tried to go some way towards impartiality by not using any evocative language in the options. I was tempted to though!

For me, it's time for an entirely fresh start and both should go after having a good run at the club.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Terry Burton appointed as Technical Director

« on: May 13, 2014, 05:20:55 PM »

Chris Lepkowski ?@chrislepkowski
#wba appoint Terry Burton as technical director. Richard Garlick now director of football administration. Story to follow @birminghammail

Roy Hodgson key to Burton appointment. England boss among several people spoken to for advice by Albion during recruitment process

Garlick seemingly moved into a position that's better suited to his background, with our player recruitment now hopefully headed up by someone who knows something about football and players.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Expert opinions on Amalfitano, Sessegnon and Anichebe

« on: September 12, 2013, 06:32:45 PM »

I'm surprised no-one has posted this, but it seems people want to talk about Shane Long more than anything else!

The following is an interesting, and largely positive, analysis of 3 of our new players from journos who know each of them well:

Link: Evening Mail special feature

I'm further encouraged about these players by reading this, but how many of them will start against Fulham - will it be Dorrans wide right and Amalfitano on the bench for example (a debate for the Fulham match Team thread of course)?

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Times article saying Mr Peace doesn't want us to get into Europe??

« on: January 19, 2013, 09:36:42 PM »

I've seen references on Twitter this week to a Times article in which it apparently says that Mr Peace doesn't want us to get into Europe because we would lose money in a European campaign.

Unfortunately, the article is only available if a subscription is taken out for The Times and I'm damned if I'm going to do that. Has anyone read it and so can shed more light on what it actually said?

I know our performances for some time mean that finishing in a position which qualifies for Europe is pretty unlikely, unless there's a significant improvement, but I think it's important to know what was actually said (if indeed there were any direct quotes) and what it signifies.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Coaching set-up

« on: June 08, 2012, 11:45:23 AM »

This was kind of lost in the locked Steve Clarke thread and was bordering on off-topic anyway, so I've decided to start a new topic on it.

Chris Lepkowski is saying that Downing and Kiely will remain at the club and it has yet to be decided if another coach will be brought in.

I'm wondering who evaluates the performance of the lower level coaches? Is Ashworth stood on the training ground watching what they do day-in, day-out? If not, does the head coach have to feed back on them? If the latter, it's an odd kind of set-up where the head coach evaluates the performance but isn't allowed to decide whether they stay or go.

Additionally, the chances are that any coaches we keep on in these circumstances (excluding the GK coach) are likely to leave before they ever get a shot at being head coach anyway (c.f. Appleton).

Ultimately, in my view, you should always be looking to get the best coaches you can, regardless of whether it's a head coach or lower level coach and, if the head coach is expected to work with these other coaches and be responsible for how well the players are coached overall, the team of coaches (possibly excluding positional coaches) should be for him to choose.

The arrangement we have smacks of penny-pinching more than anything else to me and, if no right-hand man for Clarke is brought in (given that we have a vacancy to replace Burton) that will be further evidence of penny-pinching. I'm sure the Board won't be stupid enough to do that though......

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Additional coaches needed?

« on: February 21, 2011, 08:43:52 AM »

With Eddie Newton and Ade Mafe having left with RDM, we would seem to have no fitness coach and be a first team coach down too at present. Therefore, given our situation, should we bringing another coach in (probably someone who Hodgson has worked with before) or hope that Downing can do a good enough job on secondment from the youth team? Remember that Appy was already a first team coach.

Personally I think we should be looking to bring 2 new coaches in (1 of whom is a fitness coach) and the sooner the better, otherwise I worry that there will be too much pressure on those already at the club.