Nobody can claim that this season was anything other than poor from
an Albion point of view, and seeing as I am writing immediately
after watching our dear neighbours clinch their place in the Premiership,
it makes it doubly disappointing. Those heady days when Albion sat
proudly in seventh place, above Manchester United, are a distant,
but fond memory.
The reasons why the Baggies failed to keep their Premiership place
are many. Poor refereeing is the blind-faith fan's favourite but,
while they were numerous and undoubtedly cost us points, I can't
honestly say that they were crucial. A general lack of luck is another
well-versed excuse but, while there is some evidence of that, winners
tell you that you have to make your own. The honest truth is that
the squad wasn't strong enough, but the reasons behind that have
been argued about on the message boards all season.
A lack of money is obviously the overriding factor. Our fellow promotees
were well funded and that made their job that much easier. But in
my opinion, Albion were only two or three players short of a team
that would survive. A key reason why we failed was our record against
our fellow strugglers, but any neutral watching those games would
have found it difficult to say which team was better. We created
good chances but failed to convert (particularly against West Ham
at home, the last chance in my book) and we defended well for 88
minutes, but lost concentration at key moments. A few more quality
players would have improved the side not only by their presence,
but also by their influence on other players.
What makes it more frustrating, I believe Albion had the funds to
survive as the likes of Charlton and Bolton have done, but two factors
made that task almost impossible. The first was the farce surrounding
the departure of Paul Thompson. Whether the real truth will ever
come out is debatable, but while the net result may now be a more
stable board, the two months of inactivity in the transfer market
that it led to last summer was fatal. The second factor, the introduction
of the transfer window, made an already difficult job into the equivalent
of coming back from eleven points down with two months to go....twice
in two seasons was a bit too much to ask.
I do believe, however, that Megson did OK in the time he did have
up to the end of August. Koumas was obviously an excellent signing
and not many Albion fans were sorry to see the Ninja return. The
problem was the existing squad. With so little Premiership experience
in the squad, it was an onerous task to judge how many of the players
would make it in the top flight. Just look at Clement and Roberts.
Both were touted as Premiership quality players, but both have,
in the end, been found wanting. Megson may have guessed with Clement
given his attempt to sign another left-sided defender, Hreidarsson,
from Ipswich. It takes longer than two weeks to find this out, so
the end of August deadline proved to be too soon.
And then, when the window opened again, Albion were in the bottom
three. That in itself made it difficult to attract players, and
coupled with agents' and players' reluctance to accept the financial
situation of football today, it became impossible. There are many
that say the board should have stumped up more cash, but there was
no guarantee that it would have been successful, and I, for one,
would prefer to support a financially sound football club in Division
1 than a bankrupt one.
So we are where we are, and the Dingles are where we were. Let's
not despair, but also let's not assume that promotion is a probability,
let alone a certainty. We are a stronger squad than the one that
was promoted, no doubt, and I hope we will be stronger still when
the new season starts. We have money to spend, a rare commodity
in Division One, but that, perversely, may make it more difficult
to buy as clubs will ask over the odds. At least we don't have the
transfer window to deal with.
If we keep Koumas, keep either Hoult or Murphy, and buy three or
four good players, we should challenge next season. We did it when
we weren't really good enough, let's do it when we are and join
the Dingles for a Premiership Black Country Derby in 2004.
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