West Brom will have to wait for Sean Dyche as ex-Burnley boss gives himself Premier League window
Sean Dyche could be the man to rescue West Brom but it doesn’t look like he will be an option for a few months yet based on his latest comments.
The former Burnley boss was sacked at Turf Moor in April as the Clarets headed towards relegation, and has been out of the game since.
However, he is currently making quite clear that he is ready for a return to management, by doing the podcast rounds to put his face and his thoughts back out there.
After appearing on the Sport Bible Stories podcast (15 September), Ben Foster’s Fozcast (22 September), and now Kammy & Ben’s Proper Football Podcast in consecutive weeks (29 September), it is clear that he wants back in.
Speaking on the latter, in a clip shared to BBC 5 Live Sport’s Twitter (30 September, 1min30sec) he said of where his future lies: “I think I’ve always been open minded, I’ve never been pressured. I played most of my football outside of the Premier League. Championship, [Leagues] One and Two, so I’ve never been that pressured about that.
“I think I’d afford myself a window, because I did seven out of eight seasons in the Premier League. So I think I’d at least afford myself a window to see if a Premier League want to take me.
“Eddie [Howe], I think he did a great job down at Bournemouth, but he was what? 16-18 months out of it? Bit of a logistical thing to be fair to him… But he waited that long. So we’ll wait and see.”
It is quite clear that a return to the Premier League is his first port of call, and he is right that his recent history probably earns him that, but it won’t be the only place he looks.
Having been sacked on 16 April he has currently waited five and a half months to get a new job, some way short of Howe’s time out, and sounds as if he is willing to give a while longer.
He knows as well as anyone how often top flight jobs come up so he has a decent chance of being offered one before the season is up.
But the Bournemouth job has been open for a month now and he hasn’t got that, so there is no guarantee he gets straight back into the league, and he has also made it clear that he has no aversion to the Championship in future.
Former Baggies striker told Football Insider just after Dyche became available (22 April) that he could see the 51-year-old at the Hawthorns, and with the Steve Bruce era floundering there are likely to be increasing number of fans would like to see it also.
Bruce has been afforded a window by Ron Gourlay to save his Championship job, just as Dyche has afford himself a window to get one a division up.
But if three months and a World Cup were to pass and neither of those things have happened, the windows could close.
Bruce is aware that his job is at risk, with the club 21st and over a quarter of the season gone, but if Dyche is who the hierarchy would like, as was rumoured earlier this year [Birmingham Live, 17 April], it doesn’t look like he would be ready to say yes just yet.
However, he is making quite plain that he is on the look out for work again with his slew of media appearances so West Brom need to be paying attention for when that Premier League window closes, because he is sure to be a man in demand in the second tier when it does.
In other West Brom news, one baffling recent fiasco sums up the disarray at the club.