West Brom need new blood in charge after Steve Bruce ‘doesn’t matter’ claim
West Brom have a lot to make up for in the 2022-23 season after a dismal campaign saw them finish a lowly 10th after pre-season promotion aspirations.
Valerien Ismael had managed to keep the Baggies in the playoffs by the time he was sacked despite some truly uninspiring performances on the pitch but Albion quickly plummeted once Steve Bruce took charge in February.
Not having a transfer window to work with didn’t help the vastly experienced manager’s cause but expectations were still a lot higher than what we ended up achieving and his mentality could now be brought into question.
The boss made some eyebrow-raising remarks after West Brom had been beaten 2-0 by League Two Stevenage in a pre-season friendly that should make his job much less secure than it perhaps was.
“Pre-season doesn’t really matter,” said Bruce, as quoted by The Athletic. “We are trying to get minutes into people who haven’t played for a long time, Kenneth Zohore, Daryl Dike and Cedric Kipre.
“Everyone is OK; only Grady (Diangana) is a bit sore. We’re two weeks in, three weeks to go. That’s the key to it, trying to get minutes into them. It’ll be the same Wednesday. And then we’ll start looking at picking a team for Middlesbrough.”
Those first five words are often spoken by supporters as some fans get overly carried away by the results and performances on show but no manager, player or coach should ever be uttering that sentence.
They all have a job to do in every game that comes around whether it be competitive or not and Bruce is hardly inspiring his players by saying these games don’t matter.
They have to get themselves ready for a new Championship season and one that many supporters hope will be a successful one that ends in promotion but how can we get up for it when our boss is speaking so nonchalantly?
He should be the beacon of hope at The Hawthorns not the miserable old man in the corner, something needs to change.
In other West Brom news, this Championship manager has admitted that there is an Albion player that tickles his fancy.
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