John Percy: West Brom on verge of hiring Valerien Ismael
West Brom are on the verge of hiring Valerien Ismael as their new manager, according to Telegraph journalist John Percy.
Reporting via his personal Twitter account on Monday morning, Percy said that Albion agreed a compensation fee with Barnsley at the weekend and have “now held talks”.
It is understood the Frenchman is “very close” to succeeding Sam Allardyce in charge at The Hawthorns and ending West Brom’s protracted search for a replacement.
The Athletic’s Steve Madeley also added to Percy’s update, saying that he can see Ismael arriving at The Hawthorns “in the next day or so” with him keen to land the job at the Black Country club.
Finally, a breakthrough
It’s almost July but Albion finally appear as though they are closing in on their new manager.
However, we will throw a bit of caution to the wind because we’ve been here before with Chris Wilder and David Wagner, only for Guochuan Lai to poke his nose in and veto the Wilder deal and for Wagner to reject us in favour of Swiss club Young Boys.
Ismael has had a great few years in management, taking Austrian minnows LASK to the Europa League knock-out stages and transforming Barnsley from a relegation-threatened Championship club to one that featured in last season’s play-offs.
Of course, managing West Brom will be a much bigger job for Ismael, with great respect to Barnsley, who we still owe for helping us win promotion in 2019/20.
The Tykes will be financially reimbursed for hiring a manager who did so well for them and that money could go a long way for them.
As for Albion, we’re supposed to have a competitive budget but whatever is being paid for Ismael is likely to be deducted from it.
It shouldn’t be too much of a dent and at the end of the day, we’ve hired too many out-of-work managers in the last decade who were without a club for a reason.
It is definitely time for a different approach by the club.
In other West Brom news, Kevin Phillips has reacted to the latest update on Matheus Pereira’s future at Albion.
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