
West Brom hiring Valerien Ismael ‘single biggest mistake in years’ – Steve Madeley
The 2021-22 season began with great optimism for West Brom having hired Valerien Ismael as manager after a great year in charge of Barnsley.
The Frenchman had got the Tykes to the playoffs before arriving at The Hawthorns but things quickly went downhill as the Baggies started to slide down the table despite a strong start.
He was eventually sacked at the beginning of February after a shocking run of results and Steve Bruce was appointed in his place until the end of the season.
The Athletic’s West Brom reporter Steve Madeley believes that the hiring of Ismael was actually the reason why Albion could not turn things around and climb back towards the playoff picture at the very least.
“For me appointing Ismael when they did was the single biggest mistake made in recent years (not that I think he’s a bad manager but he was the wrong manager at that moment),” Madeley said via his personal Twitter account.
“But there have been lots of other errors that have led to this season’s failures.”
Forget about it
We can’t hide from the fact that this season has been a truly awful one for the club, by our standards at least, and nothing we can do now will change that but we can begin to make sure this doesn’t happen again in 2022-23.

Bruce will already be scouring the transfer market with his eyes firmly on next season and the players are getting a well-earned rest after a very long season but what can we do in the meantime?
It’s going to be a long couple of months without our beloved Baggies out there strutting their stuff so we now have to spend our time trying to forget that this season ever happened.
We have to make 2022-23 a season to remember and not get bogged down in the Championship while others make their way to the big time and revel in all that TV money that should be ours, based on size of club, but for now, let’s enjoy the time we have away from the pitch and get ready to roar the lads onto promotion back to the Premier League next season.
In other West Brom news, Bruce is ready to invest time and money into this player who rarely featured for the senior side last season.
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