Simon Jordan aims thinly-veiled dig at ex-West Brom chairman Jeremy Peace
Simon Jordan has aimed a thinly-veiled dig at former West Brom chairman Jeremy Peace for the way he managed to get the Baggies to settle in the Premier League.
Peace oversaw Albion’s ‘yo-yo years’ where they bounced between the Premier League and Championship before establishing themselves in the top-flight between 2010 and 2018.
In his defence of the parachute payments made to clubs in the Championship after their relegation from the Premier League, ex-Crystal Palace owner Jordan backed the more modern ‘yo-yo clubs’ for adopting a similar approach.
Jim White pointed out that “Watford, Fulham, Norwich [are going] up and down, up and down” in a clip on the talkSPORT Twitter account.
And that led to Jordan claiming Peace probably patented the ‘yo-yo’ approach to club ownership.
Jordan said: “Sure, and that’s the model they’re choosing to play with.
“They’re choosing to use the West Bromich Albion model that Jeremy Peace probably patents, which was take the money, come down, reconsolidate and then come back up again then maybe next time they manage to stay up.”
It worked
For all the critics Peace had, we owe a lot to that man.
Yes, he sold us down the river by agreeing to do a deal with current owner Guochuan Lai, who took just a couple of years to undo all of his hard work at the Albion. And, yes. Peace never really pushed the boat out to take the Baggies to that next level.
But in a world where football is mainly dominated by clubs in big cities with huge financial backing, what we achieved under Peace in the Premier League is as good as we can realistically hope for.
So what if we got to where we did by yo-yoing? It worked, didn’t it?
Every time we went up, we got stronger. Every time we got relegated, we got promoted with a stronger squad than the last time we were promoted.
Unfortunately, due to Lai’s awful running of the club and Luke Dowling’s rotten spell as technical director, West Brom are back in a position where they are too good for the Championship and not good enough for the Premier League.
It’s a no man’s land that a lot of clubs below us would love to be in. But it’s never a place you’re praised for being in either.
There’s nothing wrong with it, ultimately, and at least Jordan can see that.
In other West Brom news, Albion could still swoop in to sign this Premier League goalscorer on loan this month.
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