Darren Moore recalls ‘lifeless’ West Brom during end of Alan Pardew era
Darren Moore is hailed around West Brom despite taking the club down to the Championship in 2017-18 after Alan Pardew was sacked.
Pardew left the club rock-bottom of the division but Moore instilled fight into the squad and they got closer than many expected to achieving safety with little time under the now-Sheffield Wednesday boss.
Moore was assistant manager when Pardew was sacked and recalled how the life had seemingly been sucked out of the football club.
“For me, it was a sad time really because I was watching Alan working really hard but it just wasn’t working,” Moore said on the Baggies Broadcast. “Also, the sombre mood around the club.
“I remember games against Leicester and Burnley, looking into the stands and on the pitch thinking ‘what is going on here? There’s just nothing’.
“It’s flat, it’s dull, it’s mundane, it’s lifeless. Just not happening and I felt for the manager because he was working extremely hard behind the scenes.
“I remember it was a bank holiday and I got a call to come into the football club and because it had gone on for so long, I thought it was going to go on until the end of the season and then decisions would be made.
“Within 20 minutes of me being in the building, I was told I was going to get given the job to the end of the season so it was an SOS because I didn’t expect it.”
Never again
The Hawthorns was not a nice place to be around during that season and at times in the past couple of years, it has felt like that again which makes Carlos Corberan’s job an incredibly hard one.
Valerien Ismael and Steve Bruce have both gone about sucking the life out of the supporters since the club returned to the Championship in the 2021-22 campaign.
The Spaniard is now tasked with taking this squad of drained players and injecting them with some passion and flair to get them excited to play football again.
A positive and energetic performance on the pitch always injects the supporters with the same excitement and enthusiasm but West Brom have not utilised that nearly enough.
Plenty of Baggies will make the trip to the Stadium of Light to cheer the team on against Sunderland on Monday (12 December) and they will expect a battling display from each and every one of them.
In other West Brom news, Tony Mowbray could have one of his key players back for the visit of Albion while a PSG loanee remains out.