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West Brom going down without much of a fight

David Nugent in Editorial, English Premier League 18 Mar 2018

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A 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth on Saturday was just the latest in a long line of poor results for the Premier League’s bottom team. Ironically, I have seen some observers stating that it was one of the Baggies best performances of the season.

However, for a while now it has seemed inevitable that the Baggies are set for relegation without much of a fight. I am not a big fan of former Baggies boss Tony Pulis or his style of football. However, would this team be going down with such a whimper with the Welshman in charge?

Alan Pardew appointment a mistake

The Baggies hierarchy has a reasonable history of appointing bosses. However, the club has changed hands in the last year or so. The clubs owners made a major clanger in appointing Alan Pardew as the clubs boss.

Never has a Premier League boss come across as more self-important as the former Newcastle boss. The experienced boss has achieved very little in the top-flight, apart from guiding Newcastle to a fifth-place finish before returning to mediocrity the next season.

Pardew is just another one of the long list of managerial dinosaurs that hang around the English top-flight like a bad smell. He keeps getting top-flight jobs, yet inevitably underwhelmed in every position he has held so far.

The moment the Baggies appointed Pardew, their fate was sealed. Since his appointment as the boss of the Midlands club, he has won just three of his 20 games in charge, suffering 12 defeats in the process.

Players not good enough for the Premier League

A sign of the lack of quality in the West Brom squad is that most of the Baggies players will not have a queue of clubs looking to sign them if they become available. A few of them may end up with clubs at the wrong end of the table.

The likes of Salomon Rondon and Jay Rodriguez have scored goals in the past. However, neither has scored goals on a consistent basis for the Baggies. The pair cannot be held responsible for the lack of goals this season, though, as the players who are supposed to supply the forwards with chances have failed to do their job.

West Brom has lacked creativity in their team for the last few seasons. However, they have etched out enough goals and been relatively solid in defence. This season they have struggled at both ends of the pitch.

The side from the Midlands has scored a league-low of just 25 goals this season. The Baggies defensive record of conceding 49 goals in the league is not the worst, but the lack of goals has meant they have struggled to pick points.

Doomed to life in the Championship

After a couple of years of Premier League football, it seems that there could be a return to the boing boing Baggies. Pardew’s side are now ten points away from safety and odds of 1/125 to suffer relegation zone.

It has truly been a nightmare campaign for the Baggies. Three wins from their 31 Premier League games is a truly woeful return. The fans deserve better than the way the team have performed this season.

At times working hard can mean more than talent. However, from what I have seen of West Brom the Midlander’s neither have talent and have not worked hard enough, as their position suggests.

Baggies fans will be hoping for big changes this summer in the coaching staff and the playing squad, as I highly doubt that the current squad will be competitive enough to come straight back up, especially with Pardew in charge.

Are West Brom going down without a fight?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Nugent


David is a freelance football writer with nearly a decade of experience writing about the beautiful game. The experienced writer has written for over a dozen websites and also an international soccer magazine offline.
Arguably his best work has come as an editorial writer for Soccernews, sharing his good, bad and ugly opinions on the world’s favourite sport. During David’s writing career he has written editorials, betting previews, match previews, banter, news and opinion pieces.

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