What Next for West Bromwich Albion

Back at the start of the season, many predicted it would be a woeful year for West Bromwich Albion. Roy Hodgson had left at the end of the previous season to take the England managers job and his replacement came in the form of Steve Clarke.
Someone who had been the right hand man of many great managers such as Jose Mourinho and Kenny Dalglish in the past, but had never taken the reigns himself before, save for one game as caretaker manager at Newcastle United back in 1999.
The appointment certainly drew mixed views from many. Some believed it was great that Clarke was finally getting the chance to get a management job after spending so long as an assistant, while others thought that the job was perhaps too big for him and that his managerial inexperience could be a deciding factor in potentially relegating the club from the Premier League. The appointment was made at the start of June and as such allowed Clarke plenty of time to prepare his new squad for what many were predicting would be a difficult season.
The new boss could not have asked for a better start to The Baggies league campaign as they began with a 3-0 home win over Liverpool. It was followed a week later by a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane against Tottenham Hotspur and another win was secured the week after that when they defeated Everton 2-0 at The Hawthorns and sit 3rd in the table just before the first international break of the season.
The team did lose three of their next six games but then won four games out of five in November and they ended the month 4th in the table. Clarke won the Manager of the Month award and by then, any talk of relegation had now more or less been put to bed and the talk about West Brom potentially playing in Europe next season had now began. 2012 was a great year to watch The Baggies playing at home as out of the 10 games played at The Hawthorns, they won 7 of them, drew 1 and lost 3 showing that it wasn’t easy for teams such as Chelsea to go there and get a result. The Blues suffered a 2-1 defeat there in November in what was Roberto Di Matteo’s last league game for the club before his dismissal a few days later.
At the end of January, Albion striker Peter Odemwingie made headlines for driving down to London on Transfer Deadline Day trying to force through a move to Queens Park Rangers. Despite no move being agreed by either club, Odemwingie appeared and gave a TV interview from his car window saying that he believed he was a QPR player, but both clubs reiterated that no deal was done and Odemwingie was stuck outside Loftus Road in his car as staff refused to let him in. No move materialised before the deadline and it led to Odemwingie losing a lot of support from many Albion fans for his actions.
Despite another win over Liverpool and a 2-1 win over Capital One Cup winners Swansea City, the second half of the season has been much quieter for West Brom. While “The Odemwingie Situation” did the club no favours, there have been some positive points too such as Ben Foster deciding to come out of International retirement to add some more competition for the goalkeeping spot in the England team, and the performances this season from on-loan Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku, which led to him being nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year award. The results have declined slightly in 2013 which meant the outside chance of qualifying for Europe was gone by the start of March in my opinion, but despite that, in a season where they were tipped to be battling for survival, they currently sit 8th with 48 points and should consider this season to be an overall success.
With this position in the table all but guaranteed now. The next step for Steve Clarke will be to try and build on that for next season. While I don’t want to go making any predictions yet on next season’s title contenders and bottom-half strugglers etc as it is still too early, my current thoughts are that it might be very difficult for West Brom to achieve the same league position they have currently. A lot of it will of course come down to who they bring in during the summer transfer window and which of their own key players they manage to keep a hold of. Their chances will increase massively if they manage to get Lukaku back for another season. It is not known at the moment whether Chelsea will feel that they can utilise him themselves next season but if they decide that another loan move will be a good option for the 19 year old, The Baggies would be foolish not to try and get him back after the remarkable season he has had with them.
For now at least with the top-half finish guaranteed, Steve Clarke and his team can enjoy their remaining games of the current campaign, relax for a bit with a few weeks in the sun and then come back refreshed and even more determined to try and better their current finish. Can they do it? Only time will tell.
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