West Brom dilemma ‘nuanced’ as Sky Sports pundit examines issues
It is no secret that West Brom have not had the season they were hoping for and recent struggles has seen Valerien Ismael’s tenure as manager questioned.
Their latest defeats at home to Preston and away at Millwall has been the final straw that broke the camel’s back for a vocal portion of the Baggies fanbase who want to see a new manager at the helm.
Sky Sports presenter and former Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Southampton player David Prutton believes the current predicament isn’t solely Ismael’s doing and the players should also take some responsibility for the drop off in form.
“It’s startling when you look at the personnel that are involved that started the game, names that have played at high levels, names that have been very effective at this level of football,” Prutton said on the Sky Sports EFL Podcast.
“Something is quite obviously not right, goalscoring has been a problem and there’s a very straight line to be drawn in comparison to Fulham being able to score at will, seeing what Blackburn have been able to do.
“It’s a tough job he’s got on his hands, to say it’s because he’s got a certain bunch of players that don’t want to play his way of playing football is too easy, it’s more nuanced than that.
“That squad of players, experience-wise, talent-wise and ability-wise is doing nowhere near what it should be doing and they need to take responsibility as well as the manager.”
What has changed?
Cast your mind back to August and West Brom were rolling through their opposition with ease and they looked good to achieve an immediate return to the Premier League.
Goals weren’t hard to come by, even if they weren’t flying in at the same ridiculous rate as Fulham’s were, and they looked compact in defence.
There were no complaints about Ismael when things were going swimmingly but it appears that little has changed in the team, but the results aren’t there anymore.
All of a sudden, they can’t hit a barn door in front of goal and their league-leading defence has been breached four times in the past two defeats.
This comes down to complacency as the squad were fully invested in Ismael’s high-pressing game when he first joined, but that same intensity has disappeared from the Baggies play.
The Frenchman can still turn this around but he needs his players to get back to harassing their opponents for the full 90 minutes if they want to hold on to a playoff place, let alone challenge for the automatic places.
In other West Brom news, Robert Snodgrass has sent a fond farewell message to fans after leaving The Hawthorns.