Danny Wright Fan Q&A: West Brom would’ve done better if Big Sam was in charge all season
Every week we’ll be asking West Brom fans on our Facebook account for questions that will be answered by editor Danny Wright. You can join in by following the West Brom News Facebook account and watching out for weekly mailbag posts.
Slaven Bilic was sacked by West Brom in December amid a worrying start to life back in the Premier League for the Black Country club.
Albion were 19th when Bilic went and remain 19th now with Sam Allardyce at the helm.
For many Baggies supporters, Bilic was a popular manager who needed to be backed financially by owner Guochuan Lai in the transfer market but without any investment from China, the former Albion manager and Luke Dowling struggled to get in players to improve the squad.
However, even though funds were even tighter in January, Allardyce has managed to oversee a slight improvement to the club’s fortunes by only adding a few new players.
Allardyce remains a manager who’s failed to win over a lot of West Brom supporters in his short spell in charge at The Hawthorns while there are others who still bemoan the sacking of Bilic four months ago.
We asked for questions in this week’s mailbag for West Brom News editor Danny Wright to answer and one fan wanted to know if the club has improved since Bilic’s exit.
Do you really think Bilic would have stayed? Before he left in December, his contract was due to expire at the end of this season. After falling out with the board over recruitment, do you think he would have renewed his deal after relegation? I don’t think he would have unless survival was achieved.
Bilic fought the wrong fights in terms of recruitment. He pushed hard to sign Branislav Ivanovic, Filip Krovinovic and Karlan Grant [The Athletic] – one of those has since had his loan deal terminated while the other two are out of the picture under Allardyce for good reason. Kicking off about Ahmed Hegazi’s sale was another baffling approach by the Croat. He barely ever played the Egyptian so why bemoan the decision to sell him in what was more than likely an attempt to balance the books after several other dross signings orchestrated by the now-former West Brom manager and technical director Luke Dowling.
Going back to the question, the squad is better now than it was under Bilic, albeit marginally. There’s more balance across the park and the glaring defensive midfield issue has been fixed. We’ve played well at times and the football hasn’t been as negative as many feared.
I think that if we had Allardyce in charge from the start of the summer transfer window, we would be in a better position to stay up now than if we had stuck with Bilic. Big Sam has shown that with just a couple of loan signings and the addition of Robert Snodgrass, he can improve results and performances.
In other West Brom news, an agent has confirmed the Albion have made a new free signing after a transfer fee was waived.
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