Sam Johnstone skipped team meeting after fall out with Valerien Ismael, helped lead to sack
Sam Johnstone reportedly skipped a team meeting after Valerien Ismael said he would be on the West Brom bench, Adrian Goldberg reports.
The former Baggies boss was sacked this week and replaced by Steve Bruce, with the falling out between him and the club’s number one keeper apparently playing a significant role in the decision.
Speaking on the Liquidator podcast, the BBC WM host said: “I heard from one source that after being told that he’d be on the bench, Johnstone missed a team meeting and was therefore bombed out of the squad for a couple of games”.
The former Barnsley manager’s management of his squad seems to have been a significant problem, and his confusing treatment of different players is seen to have helped lead to his downfall.
Considering the way club captain Jake Livermore was brought straight back into the side even though his replacements did well Goldberg went on to say: “It was laying down a marker wasn’t it? He was saying that there are some players in this side who in my view are undroppable. Who are guaranteed a game.
“To say that to Jake Livermore, but to say the opposite to one of England’s number one goalkeepers in place of the competent journeyman that is David Button, imagine what an insult in that context Sam Johnstone feels that to be.”
Downward spiral
Steve Madeley in The Athletic previously reported how concerns about Ismael’s relationships within the squad contributed to the board thinking about removing him, as Robert Snodgrass left on free transfer after another disagreement.
And if his decisions were beginning to lead to players openly ignoring commitments then it was surely only a matter of time before those in charge made a move.
If the results had been good then the 46-year-old former defender might have been backed against Johnstone, as he appears to have been against Snodgrass.
But with the football so poor and the fans unhappy he never had enough political capital at the Hawthorns to be burning bridges in that way.
It was a considerable fall from grace for the former Bayern Munich player who was given a four-year contract at the start of the season but didn’t see out one.
With new man Bruce at the helm, the hope is now that he can win Championship promotion for a fifth time.
In other West Brom news, the BBC man regrets comments he made about Bruce before the appointment was made.