With West Brom in town on Saturday, LFW welcomes back the good doctor Matthew Graham after a year-long absence for his opinions on the Baggies, Alan Irvine, Saido Berahino and more.
Assess West Brom's season so far…
MG: Overall, it has been a pretty average first 16 games under Alan Irvine’s tenure. The Albion have shown glimpses of what could be, especially in a superb performance against Manchester United, the battling win at White Hart Lane, and the demolition of Burnley. However, these encouraging moments have been tempered by some extremely poor results, a failure to hold on to leads (a hangover from last season perhaps), being dumped out of the Capital One Cup by Bournemouth, and some generally all-round awful performances.
In November, not a single West Brom player scored a goal (we have Estaban Cambiasso to thank for that win at Leicester), and in truth, no one really came close, in part due to a serious lack of creativity. The win against Villa at the weekend has temporarily silenced an increasingly restless Hawthorns, but Irvine ’s team selection and tactics are still under scrutiny. There has been very little to cheer about.
What was the story with Pepe Mel? Random appointment, spoke no English, didn't really seem to want to take the job in the first place, nearly got sacked and then left almost as quickly as he'd arrived.
MG: I think a lot of West Brom fans feel genuinely sorry for Pepe Mel. He came across in interviews as a likeable person, did a superb job of ingratiating himself with the club, the region, and the fans, and had a very impressive track record in Spanish football, where he is highly respected — the reaction of Betis fans when he was sacked tells its own story. I do think given time, and different circumstances he could have been a success at West Brom .
However, January last season was not a time for a manager who had little English or knowledge of the Premier League, to pick up a team that was in all honesty a shambles, haunted by a number of off-field PR disasters, and badly lacking in form. His appointment appeared one of desperation. It is a year to this week that Steve Clarke got sacked, but after numerous interviews with coaches from across Europe , the club finally choose Mel on the 17 January. He therefore had very little time to implement his high tempo / fast attacking philosophies to the team — who immediately rejected them and, from all accounts, mutinied, hence his very near sacking after 44 days. Chairman Jeremey Peace refused to back him in the transfer window — perhaps an indication that he was only ever going to be temporary. His inability to explain his tactics and ideas to the squad subsequently saw the coaches Dean Kiely and Keith Downing take most of the decisions, which undermined his position.
Furthermore, he was only appointed on the advice of Dave McDonough our then director of technical performance and scouting, who was also a Spanish speaker. It turned out that McDonough was trying to create a more active role in the club for himself, and being Mel’s translator gave him a greater say over team affairs; he was sacked very soon after this became apparent.
In many ways it is a miracle that Mel managed to keep us up, but that is probably due to the ineptitude of the teams below us rather than anything he did. In all, the Mel era is one that was a disaster, and I am sure after all the problems of last season, both him and the club are happy to close the chapter on it.
Alan Irvine seemed like a left-field appointment in the summer and has been under pressure lately. What did you think at the time, what do you think now, do you want him to stay?
MG: I must admit I was very surprised when Alan Irvine was appointed, and announcing it just before the first England game of the World Cup appeared a cynical attempt by the club to bury the news. The big shock about the decision was that Jeremy Peace had stated that the club were going to appoint a coach with either
Premier League or European pedigree, and names such as Ronald Koeman and Tim Sherwood had been identified as potential replacements for Mel. Therefore, when Irvine was chosen, it came as something of a disappointment and contradicted the messages coming from the board. He was hardly the most inspiring of choices given his record of being sacked by Sheffield Wednesday and Preston , while playing some pretty dour football.
However, like some West Brom ’s fans I was, and I continue (although I might increasingly be in a minority here) willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was always going to be up against it given the negativity around his arrival. Irvine is a well-respected coach and comes highly recommended by many people within the game. That said, his tactics and style of football are extremely negative: there has been an absence of creativity, an inability to change games decisively, there is a perception that he has stuck by his favourite players rather than shuffling the team selection, and in interviews he blames everyone / everything else, which all told is beginning to wear thin.
What alternatives to Irvine have been mentioned, and given your club's patchy recent record of managerial appointments would you trust them to get a better man next time if they were to sack Irvine ?
MG: Sacking Irvine would serve no purpose at all. Who on earth would join the club at this moment in time? If we did relieve him of his job he would be the sixth manager in four years out of the door, and only accentuate the seemingly permanent state of crisis the club is currently in. If we changed the manager now, the only viable option would be appointing someone in the Tony Pullis mould, who would make the team work-hard and grind out results, which is not what the fans want to see — the combined curses of our free flowing, attacking style in the very recent past, and an expectation of entertainment, rather than simply surviving has altered many supporters perceptions. But I think as the Mel experiment has proved, if you want to adopt a new approach to the game, then the middle of the season is not the time to do it. Would the board get it right? You’d hope so, although it’d probably be by accident rather than design.
Some television criticism of the Baggies at the weekend, questioning how a manager can be expected to work with players he has little to do with signing. Is the model still working now Dan Ashworth has left? Does it stop you attracting decent managers?
MG: Many major clubs across Europe have a very similar system, and don’t do too badly through it do they? I do think that many English pundits and fans view the whole director of football / head coach model as alien, and untraditional, and are thus quick to criticise it.
The whole point of it is that a small club like the Albion can live within its means. At most clubs sacking a manager is expensive business — compensation for him and the entire backroom staff, and usually a whole raft of players to the replace those brought in by the previous incumbent. You only have to look at how QPR have spunked money up the wall in the last couple of years to see how not to run a club... The idea at West Brom is to avoid such a scenario, prevent debt or bankruptcy, and allow for continuity and stability. Many new managers whichever club they turn up at have to work with players they didn’t buy, so what makes West Brom that different? It isn’t like Irvine has no say on the players that are purchased, which is a myth that the media are spreading based on an interview in which he stated that he’d never seen Brown Ideye play before. But I do agree, that the system and lack of total control over affairs does put off a lot of good, and also average managers (or head coaches). For example, Tim Sherwood was all set to be our manager this summer, and had effectively signed on the dotted line, but Peace would not sanction the wages for his backroom staff, which ultimately scuppered the deal.
I do think you've hit the nail on the head concerning Dan Ashworth. His departure to the FA, has been the biggest disaster to befall our club in the last few years, bringing a halt to the notion that West Brom was a model of stability and progression. Ashworth’s exit neatly mirrors the clubs travails over the last few seasons, and his replacement in Richard Garlick, has failed to match his enormous successes. Furthermore, there is a growing feeling amongst supporters that the root of our problems lie with the Downing / Kiely coaching structure, which
Peace has so far refused to sack or allow an incoming head coach to remove. In many respects this could continue to be a major problem for the club, and our ability to attract managers in the future. I don’t think the model is totally broken, but it certainly needs some tinkering.
Lots of talk and hype around Saido Berahino but he was dropped at the weekend and, like last season, his form seems to have nosedived after a bright start. Contract talks on hold, poor behaviour off the field, what's the story with this kid?
MG: Saido Berahino is a genuine talent, and West Brom are lucky to have not only brought him through the academy, but also introduce him into the first team. Far too many of our academy prospects have been poached by bigger clubs in recent years, so his graduation into the first team is hopefully an inspiration for some of the youngsters who might be tempted to leave. He is a superb goal scorer, but still has a lot to learn in terms of all round work ethic and being a general team player.
Berahino does however have a history of some major attitude problems. It was documented when he was out on loan at Northampton and Brentford that he was disruptive influence, and that when he returned to the club Roy Hodgson actually stalled his progression because of his off field issues. Last season he started brightly, got a bumper pay rise, and then did little else, apart from getting punched in the face by James Morrison and then got caught taking Hippy Crack.
This season he was immense in the first 8eight games, but once he was called up to the England squad he has subsequently been very poor, not helped by being caught drink driving only two days before a game, and then hiding it from the club management. I must admit that I admire the stance taken by Peace this week in halting contract talks, effectively telling Berahino that he has to tidy up his act before he gets rewarded. There is a feeling amongst some supporters that West Brom should cash in on Berahino soon (could probably get £20-25 million at current market rates) before his off field antics start to negatively affect his performances, and/or sell on value.
Where is the team strong and where is it weak? Who have been the stand out players and weak links so far this season?
MG: The team as a whole lacks cohesion, and we have been particularly weak in the forward areas of the pitch despite the plethora of players that we signed to plug the creativity problems. Brown Ideye our £10m record signing has done very little so far albeit with limited opportunities, Victor Anichebe has been as frustrating as he always is, and surprisingly the standout players from last season such as Youssouf Mulumbu and Claudio Yacob have been very poor when they’ve been given starts.
Our best players this season have been Craig Gardner, Joleon Lescott who has been an immense addition to the defence, Saido Berahino when he is bothered, and I’ve really liked the look of Sébastien Pocognoli, although he has a tendency to dive into tackles rashly. The major problem has been creating goal scoring chances (although the full debut of Silvestre Varela looked encouraging against Villa) and putting them away.
Short, medium and long term aims for the club?
MG: As always survival remains the first priority. Perhaps the introduction of a more progressive attacking style of football would be nice to add a touch of excitement and entertainment. Each season I’d like to have a cup run, but the disdain with which West Brom has treated both the Capital One Cup and the FA Cup has been very disappointing, and thus the supporters only have the bragging rights of beating and finishing above Aston Villa and not getting relegated as our only sense of ambition at the moment. In the longer-term it would be great to see the return of stability to the club after the last few seasons which have been frankly awful, and a feeling that the club is progressing and moving forward, similar to how Southampton and Swansea have done it.
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