West Brom fans lay blame on players and owner Guochuan Lai
West Brom have seen their season unravel entirely over the past two months with the club now all the way down in 13th in the Championship.
The club’s board sacked Valerien Ismael at the beginning of February hoping that a new manager, who turned out to be Steve Bruce, would change the fortunes of the team.
Nothing of the like has happened however and fans have had the chance to have their say on who is at fault for their nightmare season via a poll conducted by the Express and Star.
Of the four choices available, 47% of the blame from supporters has been laid at the feet of the players while both Ismael and Bruce received just 4% each.
Club owner Guochuan Lai was the other option on the four-party list and he was edged by just 2% by the players in a revealing survey.
They were also polled on the biggest on-pitch problem, with 69% saying a lack of quality in the players while 23% claimed it was a lack of motivation.
Roll on next season
Thankfully for the Baggies, the season doesn’t start in October because if it had, they would be battling to remain a Championship side next campaign.
As they started the season so well, they are already safe from relegation, bar a remarkable run of form for everyone below them, so they can already turn their focus to 2022-23.
Albion now have the chance to get a huge head start on their rivals if they are smart about their remaining games this season and experiment with things.
New formations, players and ideologies can all be tried and tested this season and the best of those will be the base of next season’s hopeful promotion hunt.
Whether Bruce remains at the club is another question entirely but there is no more harm he can do than trying something different. Anything.
In other West Brom news, this journalist has named a huge 39-man list of viable options for the Baggies to sign on a free transfer this summer.
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