Andy Johnson makes ‘fearful’ Carlos Corberan admission before West Brom play-off prediction
Andy Johnson admits he was initially “fearful” over Carlos Corberan’s appointment, but is now expecting the Spaniard to launch a play-off push at West Brom.
Corberan joined the Baggies in the relegation zone after Steve Bruce’s terrible start to the season. The Spaniard’s tenure started poorly with a 2-0 loss to Sheffield United in his opening match.
The loss left West Brom rock bottom in the Championship, and Johnson has revealed that he was extremely fearful of Corberan and the difficult task ahead of him.
“I didn’t think he would turn it around so quickly, and I was fearful of how it was going to go,” admitted Johnson to the Express & Star.
“That isn’t a negative statement, I was just a bit fearful and I’m not alone, fans were too, and perhaps the players were, because it is difficult to get out of a rut, when things get on top of you.
“But he has turned it around. And don’t forget he is still a young guy, he is 39 years old, so to come in and have as much of an impact as experience managers shows how good of a job he has done.”
Johnson then made an optimistic prediction that West Brom can make a late push for the playoffs this season.
“For me, automatic is probably out of reach now,” he said.
“But look at what Nottingham Forest did last season, what were they, one point on the board and bottom of the league and a new manager took over and they went on to make the playoffs.”
Credit where credit is due
Most fans would have expected an upturn of results after Steve Bruce’s sacking, but not many would have predicted three consecutive wins to end the first half of the season.
Entering the World Cup break in the relegation zone would have been a huge worry for the club, but the nine points picked up by Corberan were just enough to drag the Baggies out of the bottom three.
Obviously, that wasn’t – and isn’t – the goal of this season for West Brom, but it certainly created a more excited and optimistic environment around the club.
Suddenly fans, pundits and players started looking up and realising that West Brom are just eight points away from sixth place.
Play-offs are more than attainable with a strong end to the season, and while that seems unrealistic, Corberan has already shown his ability to get the best out of this Baggies squad. After a full month of additional training hopefully the squad looks even better against Sunderland this week.
In other West Brom news, Kyle Bartley is now among the best in the Championship after his West Brom turnaround