Stephen Hopcroft mocks Luke Dowling on Twitter after West Brom exit
Former West Brom head of academy guru Stephen Hopcroft has taken a swipe at recently departed Albion chief Luke Dowling on Twitter.
Hopcroft, now head of player talent identification at Aston Villa, left his role at The Hawthorns last year, making the short trip to Villa Park.
Dowling, meanwhile, parted company with Albion on Monday after three years at the club, most recently holding the position of sporting and technical director.
He hasn’t found much sympathy from his former colleague Hopcroft, however, who took to his personal Twitter profile to deride Dowling less than 24 hours after his Albion departure was confirmed.
He posted an image of a newspaper and the headline ‘Chaos reigns’ under Dowling’s face, and said: “This should have been the headline the day he got the job.”
Unpopular figure?
It’s never a great sign when ex-colleagues start coming out of the woodwork to celebrate your downfall.
Maybe it’s just bitterness from Hopcroft’s point of view, but it says a lot that he’s been gone for more than a year and still returned to take a swipe at Dowling’s legacy at the Albion.
Was Dowling really disliked within the club? If so, how was he allowed to stay for so long and wield power?
Well, whatever power he did possess looks to have been eroded in recent weeks as our search for a new manager hit the buffers.
That looks to have cost Dowling his job, with irrevocable differences clearly evident from afar.
It’s been obvious for a while now that there were fractions behind the scenes at The Hawthorns, but the scale of the mess has been unclear.
Incidents like Hopcroft’s tweet further suggest that it’s been bedlam at boardroom level and Dowling has been a fractious figure.
In other West Brom news, Steve Madeley has detailed the ‘Final straw’ behind the boardroom chaos that triggered Dowling’s exit.
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