Joe Ellis

Tue 4 October 2022 16:10, UK

Steve Bruce already has a mountain to climb to save his job at West Brom and he may have made things even harder for himself now.

The Baggies currently sit 21st in the Championship having only gone down the league table since Bruce was appointed in February following the sacking of Valerien Ismael.

Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Swansea City has been the final straw for many Albion supporters having led 2-1 and had a penalty to potentially win the game in the final 10 minutes.

Bruce faced the media on Tuesday ahead of their midweek fixture against Preston North End and it was his answer to one question that should be the end of his reign.

“What’s the aim now?” was the question, as The Athletic’s Elias Burke shared via Twitter and Bruce’s response was: “I’m still convinced that we’ll finish better than we did last season. I’m still convinced we’ll better tenth.”

For a team that has been nothing more than a Championship outfit for the past decade or two, that might be a sufficient answer but it seems like Bruce has forgotten who he is managing.

West Brom are far better than aiming for “better than we did last season” because they should be aiming for promotion outright and nothing less.

Ron Gourlay has to look firstly at himself and whether he has any desire to achieve that and then Bruce and ask himself if he is the right man to lead this team any further than next week.

If Bruce really was the man to lead West Brom back to the Premier League, he would have publicly made that the aim when the media quizzed him and backed his ability as well as his players to achieve it.

But instead, he has got his spade out and kept on digging down until he will soon run out of soil to go any further and he will be swiftly booted from the Hawthorns’ hot seat.

In other West Brom news, Sam Parkin honed in on the Baggies’ attackers after their defeat against Swansea but spared one player from the criticism.