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da fezbet： At 3-0 down after just 19 minutes against Bristol City, West Brom supporters’ attention turned to their disillusioned board.
It’s now been a month since Darren Moore was sacked as manager and the club are still searching for someone to take over permanently. It’s a situation that’s become a mess and the Baggies fans displayed their frustration vocally at Ashton Gate.
James Shan had started off brightly. He’d won his first three matches in charge but now following consecutive defeats against Millwall and Bristol City, the club are staring down the barrel of potentially dropping out of the play-off places.
If the board had been concerned with their future under Moore then their worries will now have heightened even more.
Plenty of things went wrong last Tuesday night but could they have been prevented if one key man had started?
Lack of leadership
There wasn’t much Shan could have done about the defending for the Bristol City goals. Jake Livermore played a horrendous pass for the opening strike after just a minute, whilst Conor Townsend was caught out at the back post by a stooping header from Jack Hunt for the third.
However, in all the chaos that ensued in the opening quarter of the game, Chris Brunt, the club’s captain watched on from the substitutes’ bench.
The Northern Irishman has been particularly vocal and is known, for better or for worse, to be a strong influence in the dressing room.
But even if some West Brom fans may not like that about him, Shan’s decision not to include him in midweek could prove costly, not only for any potential ambitions he had of becoming the permanent manager but in terms of their promotion hopes too.
The club needed a leader and for someone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. Brunt isn’t someone who can change the game as such with the ball at his feet, but mentally he could have been able to prevent some of the madness that happened in the opening 19 minutes.
Brunt’s form has been impressive too, claiming two assists and a goal since Shan took charge. For him to be left out, therefore, was a huge error.