Ever since West Bromwich Albion’s notoriously reclusive and media-shy chairman and majority shareholder Jeremy Peace drew a public line in the sand under the failings of last season, supporters have been implored to look ahead to this season, as opposed to continually looking back and wondering what might have been had a modicum of planning and, dare I say, ambition been evident instead of the negligent attitude which precluded the last minute trolley-dash to fill out the squad in the shadow of the transfer window closing late last August. Following that mea culpa admission, coupled with a sweeping broom which cleared out areas of the squad which had needed cleaning for a good while, many fans appeared to have taken those words to heart and waited in anticipation of this summer’s ‘change’ which Mr Peace had promised.
To be fair to the club, squad movement was relatively swift and the training ground doors must have resembled revolving doors thanks to the amount of players heading both in and out of the club throughout the summer months. One of those incoming deals saw the kind of outlay which many supporters have long viewed as being perfectly viable and achievable. At £10m – a fee which could still apparently rise further dependent on performance-escalators, Brown Ideye will be tasked with spearheading a new look Albion squad through choppy Premier League waters that he has no prior knowledge of. The fact that the other ten incoming deals totaled an outlay of just half that of the club’s ‘marquee’ signing should lead to the brakes being tapped on talk of a wholesale change in approach from the paymasters in the Boardroom. Considering incoming fees from the sale of want-away midfielder George Thorne, not to mention Shane Long and his sell-on percentage following the forward’s move to Southampton, the 11 new arrivals average out at a net average outlay of approximately £1m. Taking the transfer of Ideye out of the equation, that results in a net average outlay of around £150,000 per each new signing.
Integrating 11 new signings into a squad, and later the first team, is no easy task for any manager, let alone one who has been out of day-to-day club management since his dismissal from Sheffield Wednesday in 2011. Time is not usually a commodity which is in plentiful supply in an industry which demands instant results. The truth of the matter however is that this is the stark reality of life towards the top of Alan Irvine’s chosen profession – and he must deliver the results demanded of him, or he will find himself going the same way as any number of failed managers and find himself back on the managerial scrap-heap.
Looking at the business which has been carried out around the Premier League, the situation that Albion currently find themselves in is not unique. In fact 40% of Premier League clubs signed 9 or more players this past summer, with QPR actually equalling Albion’s tally of 11 new arrivals. Two other sides (Leicester City and Crystal Palace) welcomed 10 new additions into their fold, so pleading for extended time to integrate and educate the new players into the system that he wants to play will soon begin to fall on deaf ears unless good results accompany this extended bedding-in period. The worry following a slow start to the season is exactly where those good results will be coming from.
An opening day draw at home to a Sunderland side who welcomed eight new players to Wearside this summer was a half-decent start, nothing more, nothing less and one which was littered with some very poor defending from set-pieces – an area that I would hope a genuine coach would have had his side better drilled at thanks to time spent on the training ground. Next up was a goalless draw away to Southampton (again with eight new signings) which, somewhat depressingly, has been the highlight to the season so far. Being fair, there were encouraging signs and at the end of the 90 minutes, there was only one side looking like taking all three points and, but for a good save from Fraser Forster in the Southampton goal, Brown Ideye would’ve been an instant hero had he found the finishing touch to accompany his penalty box pirouette.
From that point on, the less said the better, as both the Capital One Cup tie at home to Oxford and the trip to Swansea have been nothing short of turgid. Scraping by at home to Oxford on penalties was bad enough – and believe me, it was BAD, but the utter capitulation at The Liberty Stadium plumbed new depths of alarming. That Irvine then mentioned that the best made plans had had to be thrown away following a second minute Nathan Dyer goal was as infuriating to hear as the game itself was to watch. Alan; there were still another 88 plus minutes available to muster up some form of attacking intent, yet none was forthcoming. Regardless of the options which to that point were unavailable to him, that is simply unacceptable.
Given the grace of a two-week international break to get some much-needed fitness training into a number of the new arrivals, performances on the pitch need to reflect the endless stream of positivity which is filling the news section on the club’s official website. It is one thing to constantly read that all things Albion are happy and fun, but when performances on the pitch, not to mention results, fail to reflect such widespread positivity, this form of propaganda tends to fall on deaf ears amongst the supporters. Harsh reality or not, this is a results-driven business and only an upturn in that respect will make Irvine any more comfortable in his position.
There is hope that following the break in Premier League action, attacking intent may be more prevalent in coming matches thanks to the inclusion of wingers Sebastian Blanco and Silvestre Varela as well as fellow newcomer Georgios Samaras. This fresh impetus will be critical in shaping the season ahead and the hope will be that they can hit the ground running. Along with Brown Ideye finding his Premier League scoring boots, these factors could well make or break Alan Irvine’s Premier League managerial bow.
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