‘Huge blow’ – Exclusive: Phillips says how possible plan to void season will hurt West Brom
We’re delighted to welcome former West Brom striker Kevin Phillips as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns…
Kevin Phillips had admitted it would be a “huge blow” for West Brom if the current season was to be voided as they can “almost touch the Premier League”.
Slaven Bilic’s side have spent almost the entire season in the automatic promotion spots and with the Championship currently suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, the second-placed Baggies are six points clear of third with nine games to play.
There have been some ideas mentioned about how football should deal with the suspension of play, with one idea being to null and void the entire season and start again as normal in August, as if 2019/20 never happened.
However that could seriously hurt a team like West Brom, according to Phillips, who says that it would mean a lot of hard work at The Hawthorns would ultimately come down to nothing.
“We’re all going to have a guess at what happens but from a player’s point of view, you’ve worked hard all season, you’ve got yourself into an unbelievable position with nine games to go,” Phillips told West Brom News.
“You can almost smell it. You can almost touch the Premier League. But if it was to be cancelled or null and voided, it’d be a huge blow.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen this happening and I personally hope that three or four weeks down the line – now that the Euros have been cancelled – maybe we could reconvene and get this season finished.”
There is no way that the season can be voided, simply because it wouldn’t be fair on teams like Liverpool, Leeds and West Brom, with the latter two well-poised for promotion to the Premier League.
Luckily, there are no clubs in the Championship who want that to happen.
BBC Sport journalist Ian Dennis reported that on Tuesday, the 24 second-tier clubs all agreed that they want to finish the current season.
It might be a while before football restarts but that is certainly the fairest way to cope with this.
In other West Brom news, our panel of Super Fans have reacted to a report saying Bilic is wanted by a club in Europe.