Baggie fanatic, Frank Skinner's heroes are Elvis Presley, Jeff Astle and a fellow cheeky chappy and ukulele minstrel, George Formby..
George’s well known catchphrase encapsulates what hopefully was the culmination of a tempestuous month and a last gasp January Transfer Window coup, the signing of serial Championship finisher, Adam Armstrong..
As George would say,
‘Turned out nice again?”
January started with a caretaker core of coaches, and after a solid flirtation with overseas bosses for a variety of reasons not coming to fruition, the well being of Tony Mowbray from his 6 Month check up for colon cancer, could not have been more fatefully timed, for a heroes return to management at one of his ancestral homes, The Hawthorns..
Add in some understandably mixed team performances, players we were glad to have seen return to their own pastures green, only to be loaned out by their parent clubs yet again, [the squad system and five subs per game has fueled this extreme loanee trend], a player I’m truly saddened to see depart the Albion, and new, exciting talent enters this new Mowbray era..
In other words, A LOT has happened.
No doubt a sense of stability is now needed both in management and team selection.
When you look at The Championship, at this stage, 65% of games have been played, so the table doesn’t lie?
We are in 6th place, but remarkably the points differential between 1st and last place, from where we currently reside is the same.
19 Points.
The top 4 are clear and it’s really two spots up for grabs now and a playoff run from a team that suddenly becomes hot is the only viable route to promotion.
However, in all honesty, that would have to be at a level or consistency West Brom have not genuinely threatened all season, or more probably the past four seasons.
Therein lies the true extent of the challenge for Tony Mowbray.
This has to be considered a Baggies revolution, as a revolution is what is needed, and will inevitably take time.
There is no easy fix.
The more expansive and long term fix will be in the next Summer Transfer Window, where out of contract, under performing, aging players will be politely asked to move on, and younger players will take their place.
Perhaps, hopefully, a few of our own?
Nothing would please me more if, Mogga can blood our own talent, before the circling, courting eyes of our not so 'friends in claret and blue' decide to flutter their appreciative eyelids.
We all know how that goes?
Thankfully, the best of our young players this decade, Tom Fellows trusted his future with us and stayed.
Honesty is how Tony Mowbray sees things and says things.
For Mogga, it's the only way.
Maybe it’s from his mentor, the boss who had the most profound influence on him as a player, and in management Mogga’s kept the same philosophy?
Bruce Rioch.
Bruce could be complementary or cutting in his opinions depending on the theme and his take.
It was nothing if not honest.
And of course Rioch’s biggest influence was Brian Clough, the doyen of speaking your mind.
No doubt, in Mowbray’s media statements so far, there has been a coursing honesty of how he sees individual players, and at the very least, you know where you stand with a character like that?
The acid test is how you answer and deal with the critique.
That’s how it always was for Mowbray as a young player and now as a veteran manager.
ANSWER A CHARACTER BY SHOWING CHARACTER!
Film can only show you so much, and now, into the third week of the Mowbray reign, the training pitch and Championship fixtures will only clarify the opinion of WHO will be in the rebuild and WHO won’t?
The Dobbins and Racic experiment failed to deliver.
Dobbins looked like a very talented teen at Everton, but teams can work you out and the development of your second and third year of your career often define whether you are cut out for the highest level.
There’s no guarantee.
We’ve had some tremendous young attacking players who’ve made careers but not at the highest echelon.
Jonathan Leko and Kyle Edwards are two recent cases of this scenario.
Racic’s loan signing was one of rich anticipation..
Statuesque, looked blessed with good technical skills.
World Cup squad player.
As a Baggies fan, I’d find it hard to believe that Racic's debut off the bench v Swansea wasn’t one you weren’t looking forward to?
Yet it never looked close to working out, his initial proliferation of missing very takeable goal scoring chances being the barometer of his future, consistent low bar performances.
Losing Alex Palmer, really hurts.
Taking your medicine is a cliche, and can be perfectly extended to the administration of punitive measures for rules being broken.
And that we did, and to navigate our way back to financial stability, a price had to be paid..
And part of that price was Palmer..
This ‘medicine’ reminded me of my mum putting her fingers on my nostrils to take away the sickly flavour of the potion to make me feel better.
And that’s how I felt seeing Palmer in the blameless, on Ipswich’s part, footage, proudly showing their new signing..
No doubt, Ipswich Town played a masterly hand here?
They are getting a keeper, who raised the level of custodianship at the Albion by several crossbars at a bargain price.
Advice from coaches counts.
At the time, Steve Bruce’s goalkeeping guru at the Albion was the much trusted Gary Walsh, who was also Bruce’s goalkeeping coach at Wigan and Aston Villa..
But how, Walsh or Bruce saw David Button as a better option than Alex Palmer is beyond belief..
Palmer simply made West Brom’s defenders a better group by results and by statistics, by sheer ability, concentration, anticipation and presence.
If your clean sheet record is 40%, winning the Golden Gloves Award last season in The Championship, was a proven acknowledgement of excellence.
Looking at the options and PSR demands, selling a home grown player was the most effective move for the club's finances, and seeing the Premier League bids for Tom Fellows being derisory for a player of his ability and potential, the only other viable option was selling Palmer to maximize profit to the club.
This departure of course gives Josh Griffiths a huge opportunity and rave reviews have greeted his performances at both Portsmouth two years ago and Bristol Rovers this season..
Every level of football has its own mysterious lexicon of demands.
Even a player of recent loanee Adam Armstrong’s ability and also former Baggie, Dwight Gayle, both thrived in The Championship, but struggled in the Premier League.
The same criteria can be applied to Caleb Taylor, who is domineering in Division 1, but still not quite ready for The Championship.
For Griffiths, this is the deserved opportunity of his career so far, he has certainly earned it, now it's up to him to take it in both hands.
It’ll be fascinating to see how it pans out.
Defensively, it’s obvious we have missed the presence, let alone the ability of Kyle Bartley, but age awaits no man as injuries have blighted his last few seasons at The Albion, and without him, we just aren’t the same defence.
Bartley is due back soon , but realistically, for how long??
The Bartley, Heggem central pairing looks our best option, or Plan B, could be moving Heggem into Callum Styles spot and move our Magyars maestro further forward with Holgate or the returning Ajayi at centre half?
But for Styles to play in an attacking, creative role, seems even more of an impasse looking at the new expansive signings, so Styles may well have to stay at left back.
It seems to me, the licence to roam forward in home games, suits Styles much more than the pressures of an away game, where defence rather than attack is often key.
Styles seems that archetypal Mowbray technical player, and I’m sure Mogga may well find a method to incorporate Styles into the team long term..
Jayson Molumby is a Baggies terrace hero, deservedly so, feeding off the faithful who wallow in someone so gloriously committed, and in the words of the song, ‘ I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down’.
The Cranberries tune works just as well..
You forget Molumby is just 25 years old, and for a team like us, is a one man band as well as a one man riot act for any opponent.
No one carries the energy and the fight Molumby brings to the pitch, and when he is missing, the precision in possession in midfield had better be spot on, as the energy and passion of the omitted Irishman is irreplaceable in this squad.
Mowbray loves his technically adept players, an area even the most ardent Molumby fans would say is not one of his strongest.
But take Molumby out of your team, you do so at your own peril and this can consequently motivate opponents that you can get at the Albion physically.
We have no one to carry the game back to an opponent, and as ever balance is everything.
The Mowbray/Molumby dynamic will be vital to get right.
Alex Mowatt certainly isn’t the same player without Molumby beside him, and the experiment of playing Jon Swift deep, thereby allowing an opposition, as struggling Plymouth [ who were admittedly strengthened from some solid transfer window signings], to at times dictate, was always on the cards.
In central midfield, your axis needs an element of athleticism and pace, and these are two components, a Swift/Mowatt axis sadly lack.
Grady Diangana is a player and character Mowbray seems to have gravitated too in encouraging words and he has started the last two games, but this selection comes with an element of high risk.
The engima that is Grady has never quite been solved, and it'll be interesting to see how much patience Mowbray has in selecting a player whose impact can be so sporadic.
The more Mowbray sees, the more he's informed.
We've simply got to ride that selection and tactical wave with him.
Like all waves, there will be plenty of ups and downs in the journey.
As fans, it’s vital we let the course unveil itself in it's own time.
As for journeys, Karlan Grant’s season has been one of deserved redemption, for few have made more effort to become a starter again in the team and done more to deservedly hold their place in the team, either in a left midfield role or dovetailing so well further forward with Josh Maja.
But football is nothing if not in the here and now, with a set of circumstances derailing the upward arc of Grant’s time with us.
Injuries dictate circumstances in a squad as imbalanced as ours, and once Mikey Johnston had recalled to his strongest position on the left side of midfield, and Grant missed several games with a foot injury, momentum had passed between the Irishman and the Englishman..
Being the only viable replacement for the injured Josh Maja, put Grant back into the role that he had underwhelmed with us in previous seasons, as a lone striker.
Self confidence can easily drop, a component more important seemingly to Grant, than most other players..
Add in Mowray’s searing honesty about who he considered his main left side option, and overlooking Grant as a starter last week v Plymouth, has led to some introspection and a possible future away from WBA.
The speed of this decline for Karlan, is rapid and probably undeserved, but football is all about opinions and as a player, changing a manager’s opinion, is no doubt the only viable option for Karlan Grant at this conjecture.
Certainly this transfer window is a clear indicator in what Mowbray has always believed in.
The accent of young talent being promoted and the age of his team declining.
This has of course, not always been the case.
Three year contracts for players already on the declining curve of their careers prevailed.
Loan moves for aging if not way past their best talent, for example, the likes of Tom Rogic, Marc Albrighton and Yan M’Villa were recent January Window disasters.
How on earth can you build a future on that type of transaction and long term planning like that?
There is no doubt we are now going for a much younger future, from the potential of Spurs 19 yr old prodigy, the striker Will Lankshear, whose athleticism and self confidence should serve him well as a loanee who can make an impact at WBA.
More importantly, long term, two permanent signings, who if it works out, will be our next generation of attacking players and if needed have a good sell on value.
Issac Price at 21 years old has tremendous international experience for one so young, looks very fit, technically sound and full of running, and a scoring threat from midfield, an area we’ve failed to utilize for a number of years..
As intriguing as the Price signing is Tammer Bany, a Danish prospect with a Palestinian family background, another long term signing for Mowbray to mould into this next generation of Baggies.
Bany has fast feet, is very difficult to knock off the ball, with a strong core lower body strength, and tenacious approach to the game.
These long term signings are in no doubt a calculated risk by Mowbray and the WBA recruiting team, but the potential both players possesses is absolutely there.
Add in Ousmane Diakite for a larger role now, and we have a midfield that is amongst the youngest in the division..
With all this going on, the one hole that needed filling was an experienced, clinical finisher to lead the line, and with Josh Maja being out for months, and sadly no guarantees on the fitness of the returning Daryl Dike, something had to give.
Dominoes always have to fall right in the January Transfer Window and originally it looked likely that Adam Armstrong would be going close to his home town to Middlesbrough who Southampton offered Armstrong as long as a loan fee and 100% of his Saints salary was paid..
After Kelechi Iheanacho signed for ‘Boro, the dominoes happened to fall The Baggies way.
The only negative is, it was very late in the transfer window.
But ironically for us, the deal we got for Armstrong was better financially for the club as we are only paying a percentage of his Southampton salary..
And as for percentages?
57% is superb, when you look at the goalscoring to games ratio of Armstrong’s last two seasons in The Championship, as well as having a very solid relationship with Mowbray and Venus from their time at Blackburn.
Height is also not a factor for instinctive Baggies forwards of recent memory.
Dwight Gayle and Bob Taylor are both 5ft 10’, the best Baggies finisher in my lifetime, Kevin Phillips is 5ft 7’ and Adam Armstrong happens to be 5ft 8’.
That ‘fox in the box’ type of character is exactly what WBA needs.
Armstrong has very good movement and a refreshing and justifiable arrogance in his ability to take a chance.
And as Mowbray said, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of arrogance.
Mowbray’s take regarding arrogance was applied to Tom Fellows with what such a gifted player needed to develop to reach the next level.
Tom strikes you as a type of lad who has been wonderfully brought up, his parents, both teachers, have guided him beyond well..
Even Tom's loyalty to commit to us, was based on his parents good sense, trusting this was the place for their son.
How long that will be the case, we honestly don’t know?
Premier League bids were reportedly made again in this window, potential profit that would have made a huge change to our financial position.
Maybe the key question is, how good Tom Fellows at WBA could really be?
Life under Tony Mowbray may well reveal that.
A touch of devil may care is never a bad thing in any flamboyant winger..
This new Baggies incarnate is unleashed v Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday and heralds a tough challenge of five games in twenty one days, the last game of this run, away at leaders Leeds Utd.
With such a run of games, squad rotation and depth will be absolutely key…
My take on this run of games is to be patient.
A new team will emerge.
Age will drop, players will be less experienced and errors may well be made.
But allow for it.
Teams take time, and it may take until next season for this team to really mature and make a more sustained and genuine long term bid for promotion.
Nothing is set in stone, but as we move out of an awful, myopic, financial malaise under the previous ownership, we now have a younger, hungrier squad and hopefully long term, solvency.
Under Mowbray’s vision and decision making, the future could be very, very bright.
George's words, may well be propethtic,
'It will turn out nice again'.
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