Gibbs and Grosicki are set to leave but West Brom must get rid of more deadwood
Kieran Gibbs and Kamil Grosicki look set to leave West Brom but Luke Dowling must get rid of other stars who are no longer needed.
There are seven Albion players who are facing an uncertain future as their current deals with West Brom expire in the summer.
Many of those have been on the fringes this season and we cannot see any of the seven staying on next season.
The club offered new deals to Conor Townsend and Kyle Bartley [The Athletic] recently and that was the right move.
Bartley in particular has looked impressive in recent weeks and has shown the fight and desire to help keep us up.
We have conceded just three goals in our last five games and Bartley’s recent performances earned him a place in the WhoScored Team of the Month for February.
Gibbs, by contrast, has been awful this season and though injury has sidelined him recently, he would not get into the team ahead of Townsend anyway.
He has verbally agreed a move to Inter Miami [ESPN] while reports in Poland [Meczyki] indicate Grosiki’s time at The Hawthorns will also come to an end at the end of the season.
That is positive news as it will allow the club to offload significant salaries from the wage bill.
Dowling must not stop there, however, and he must get rid of Slaven Bilic signings like Branislav Ivanovic and Lee Peltier.
Both have played a minimal role this term and thankfully only signed one-year deals when they joined last summer.
Time is up for the likes of Hal Robson-Kanu, Kyle Edwards and Andy Lonergan too, whose contracts are also up in June.
Not one of that trio is good enough for the Premier League so there is no place for them in the squad next year.
In the summer we must freshen up the squad and start putting together a long-term plan that will not only get us up, but ensure safety when we are back in the Premier League.
The likes of Leeds and Leicester have managed that with great success in recent years and we must look to emulate them.
With several loanees also likely to depart we can start all over again, and build a squad in the image of Sam Allardyce or another manager – Chris Wilder perhaps.
He took Sheffield United into the Premier League and finished in the top-half in his first year.
We will have an opportunity to reset the team and Dowling cannot afford to waste it.
In other West Brom news, Kevin Phillips thinks it would be a no brainer for West Brom to sign one loanee on a permanent basis.
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