[kirk]

2 years ago we had a real chance to kick on and establish ourselves as not only the top midland team but also in the premier league. As per normal we didn’t take it, too happy to do the bare minimum and try it on the cheap. We appoint a chairman from yesterday who presided over Blackburn’s decline, the owner sold up to the only people who would give him the money but in doing so had nothing left to invest in the club, cheap option players, no long term planning.

The club is a mess

[maccbaggie]

It's a result of years of short-termism and poor investment - with a refusal to use our international scouting network under Pulis.

Signing players like Livermore, McClean, Nyom, Lambert, Barry, Robson-Kanu et al rather than looking to Europe and South America for better quality and value.

Our recruitment strategy has been painfully close-minded, signing ageing players who have had their best day in the Premier League. Compare that to the type of players teams like Leicester, Watford - and even Brighton and Southampton - have signed.

[BoingFlyer]

Thinking that HRK is an adequate replacement for an In-form Berahino or Odem. Jrod got my hopes up but has not delivered this season.

[smosher34]

It went wrong by not sacking pulis after the final game of last season .

[TheJacko2000]

It went wrong by not sacking pulis after the final game of last season .

You don't sack someone who has finished 10th. Don't care what anyone says.


Since Pulis left we've won one league game.

[boot2006]

Should have bust a gut to get Lukaku when we had the chance.  Even if we would of ended up selling him we'd of had plenty of money to buy a good replacement.  Also Should of sacked Pulis and brought back Hodgson when the chance was there.

[Albionic]

When John William was appointed, the problems on the pitch are Not the root cause of the clubs issues,
Signing 36 year olds
Awarding renewed contracts to average players
Allowing recruitment to be U.K. only focussed
Not reacting when TP was n such a disastrous run
All issues which John Williams should be accountable for

[paulosull]

You don't sack someone who has finished 10th. Don't care what anyone says.


Since Pulis left we've won one league game.

you do if the team went on the run he had at end of season

[miggybaggy]

Where did it all go wrong? Appointing Pulis in the first place.

On the day we said a final farewell to Cyrille the tenure of his awful approach to our beloved game has reaped its final reward.

Be ironic if Stoke came down with us.

[webral]

Peace got greedy and short sighted to ensure his payday and sold to the highest bidder. We got Pulis and a bunch of other clowns employed or recommended by Peace.

[WBAinDEVON]

when it all went a bit aarrd

[Backofthenet]

I think it's gone wrong since last March when they all went on holiday and patted themselves on the back.
To think we'll do well in the Championship is very short sighted. Not all of the teams in there will come up so there will likely be Bristol City - remember they played us off the park at The Hawthorns and Derby (serial chokers) who still did us. There will be others who don't see us as any sort of threat. Our struggles will continue.
Its gone wrong for too many reasons to come up with but the problem is that it shouldn't have gone wrong and there are supposedly people in place who would have known what to do.
When they get their heads out of the bucket of sand they're in they will then realise we are in a mess.
I think it may get worse that better.

[DaveWBA]

You don't sack someone who has finished 10th. Don't care what anyone says.


Since Pulis left we've won one league game.

I agree with you on most things Jacko but can't help thinking your over egging the Pulis pudding here. He has to shoulder some of, but not all of the blame.

We had sat through two and a half seasons of Pulis come last May, for me given the players we had in our squad and the fact we finished 10th (albeit with a dreadful second half of the season) he had more than performed his job of stabilising the club. We cannot blame him for the club providing him with not one but two contract extensions but in reality, how many years of stability, safety first, treading water do we need before we are in a position to adopt a more sustainable and progressive approach. In my opinion the time for this was last summer.

By progressive, I'm not asking for much - we went from a model under Ashworth and Hodgson that was so successful it led to the FA poaching our prized assets. Southampton make it work, being able to buy players with a resale value is vital for clubs in our position. Since Ashworth has left how many of our players have gone on to bigger and better things? Southampton outclassed us the other week, they were able to put £70m worth of talent in their midfield and forward line. The squad we have managed to assemble now has zero resale and leaves us with very little to build on.

Pulis had obviously reached the end of his shelf-life with us and you can make good arguments for sacking him sooner than we did. However, and I said as much at the time that to appoint someone like Pardew renders the decision to sack him pointless. A sacking is only a good decision if the right replacement is appointed. I didn't sit through three years of Tony Pulis to end up with Alan Pardew.

[Groovephil]

It all started when the foot was taken well and truly off the gas last year when we were safe, for some reason since then Pullis was never able to get them going again.

The irony was we had a decent Summer window but pretty every player has not clicked into gear at Albion and that has ultimately sealed the fate.

The worst for me though is i'm actually not that bothered, like a lot of fans around me we've tired of the prem, sure the shiny lights at the start seem great but it soon becomes a slog, add in Pullis ball and it was just too much. I;d like to see Pardew stay but who knows what the Summer will bring. No chance we are staying up though.

[baggiejohn]

We can't score goals end of.....

Only Burnley & Swansea have scored less than us this season & Burnley have only conceded 24

[geoff]

TP was the right man at the right time 100%.
Were the chairman went wrong was not replacing him when he had secured  our survival in the premiership.
He like we all know TP would take us on a journey to drab football and ultimately the drop to the championship.

[geoff]

Think it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask
Brian Robson to come and give the squad a motivational talk.

[hardtobeat]

The malaise goes back as far as the sacking of Clarke which in turn led to the appointments of Mel and Irvine wit JP showing zero ambition other than to sell for as much as  possible. Yes TP steadied the ship but his race was clearly run  by the end of last season add to that  his intransigence  in the transfer market left us with at best an unbalanced squad. On top of this people in off field office are showing themselves to be very limited in ideas and ability, put these into a cocktail shaker and you have a recipe for ending up exactly where we are..
 The club needs  leadership on and off the field  that will come up with  a plan  that will both get us out off the Championship and be  able to sustain  and improve when/ if we get promoted  . Not easy I agree but that has to be the aim.

[wodenson46]

The malaise goes back as far as the sacking of Clarke which in turn led to the appointments of Mel and Irvine wit JP showing zero ambition other than to sell for as much as  possible. Yes TP steadied the ship but his race was clearly run  by the end of last season add to that  his intransigence  in the transfer market left us with at best an unbalanced squad. On top of this people in off field office are showing themselves to be very limited in ideas and ability, put these into a cocktail shaker and you have a recipe for ending up exactly where we are..
 The club needs  leadership on and off the field  that will come up with  a plan  that will both get us out off the Championship and be  able to sustain  and improve when/ if we get promoted  . Not easy I agree but that has to be the aim.

Exactly this. In addition the fact that the premiership was never intended to include teams like WBA, means that even with the TV rights payments we struggle to maintain a place let alone compete. We, and many like us simply cannot afford to buy and pay, or keep hold of enough quality to stay up with the capital city clubs or the rule making NE conglomerates. We ain't meant to be there folks and the question is do we really want to be? For me the sooner the premier league takes its money grubbing corruption away into an exclusive euro setting and leaves real football clubs to return to the people the better.

[baggiejohn]

I think we're over theorising.

We are one of about 10 clubs who are all in a similar position:

- Employing "Old School" coaches
- Traditional thinking at Board Level etc

IMO it's true that we're working within fine lines. This season, we've found ourselves on the wrong side of those fine lines.

If scoring goals win matches & conceding goals lose them, this is our record under two different managers:

Tony Pulis; Scored 11, Conceded 18
Alan Pardew Scored 10, Conceded 22 (of which 6 in the last two games)

Two totally different styles & we can't score goals in either.

[FallOutBoy]

It started going wrong the day Ashworth left - that's when we abandoned the long term plan and strategy that had seen the club on an upward trajectory for several years.

Peace had already decided to sell the club, but with that gone he decided to just keep Premier League status so he could get the most money, so he appointed 'survival expert' Pulis. Then he sold the club to the first person to stump up the cash, having gone for a short term approach in order to try and preserve Premier League status.

From then on, everything has been downhill. Pulis might keep you up, but he works season-to-season, leaving the next guy no solid foundations to build upon. There might have been somebody out there who could do a better job than Pardew, but the recruitment process was flawed. The squad is imbalanced in terms of both type and quality - how are Krychowiak and Sturridge in the same team as Championship-level dross like Robson-Kanu et al?

Simply put, this is what we have got for several years of short-termism and treading water. And as I've said before, if you try to tread water for too long you will drown.

[The Joust]

It started going wrong the day Ashworth left - that's when we abandoned the long term plan and strategy that had seen the club on an upward trajectory for several years.

Peace had already decided to sell the club, but with that gone he decided to just keep Premier League status so he could get the most money, so he appointed 'survival expert' Pulis. Then he sold the club to the first person to stump up the cash, having gone for a short term approach in order to try and preserve Premier League status.

From then on, everything has been downhill. Pulis might keep you up, but he works season-to-season, leaving the next guy no solid foundations to build upon. There might have been somebody out there who could do a better job than Pardew, but the recruitment process was flawed. The squad is imbalanced in terms of both type and quality - how are Krychowiak and Sturridge in the same team as Championship-level dross like Robson-Kanu et al?

Simply put, this is what we have got for several years of short-termism and treading water. And as I've said before, if you try to tread water for too long you will drown.

Yep, big loss that bloke

[baggie82]

Were 20th on merit because we have the 19th worst attack in the league. It went wrong relying on Rondon, J-Rod and Robson Kanu to score the goals. Conversely we have the 10th best defence. Should have concentrated on signing strikers in the summer not slow midfielders. Recruitment was all wrong, Pulis must take the responsibility for that. He signed Gibbs who can't defend and Barry who can't run. Understandably decedent strikers didn't want to play for him. Board also at fault though for not sacking him in the summer, instead let him have a disaster of a window on the back of an awful run. Pardew or Hodgson should have been building their own team in the summer, as it was they Pardew has inherited a Pulls squad set up to win 1-0 that lost faith in the ultra defensive methods.

[WBArgo]

After 2 seasons in the Premier League we had an excellent long-term spine: Foster, McAuley, Olsson, Mulumbu, Dorrans, Morrison, Brunt and eventually Yacob.

The problem is we didn't replace these players; they either left when they declined, or stayed and declined as they got older. You can't compare the recent signings to those players - the gulf in class is huge.

I think this was somewhat going to happen when Ashworth went - so we went with Pulis who promised short-term safety and delivered. Now we're in a mess - bad signings and no structure.

[Xpresso]

There was contingency planning, And like the old adage goes, fail to plan and you plan to fail.

Sacking a manager and replacing him with someone with an even worse managerial record is just plain bad management.