West Bromwich Albion Football Club. It’s in my blood like a terminal disease with no option of pain relief. I didn’t choose them as my team, I inherited them. I wouldn’t swap them for another in a million years.
That said, they are the number one cause of my bad moods and anger, as at any other time, I like to think that I’m a laid back and reasonable person. The Albion however, have the ability to make steam come out of my ears and my blood boil. Again, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s called passion. Anyone who is a true fan of a football club has it coursing through their veins.
As an Albion fan, during any transfer window the stresses and strains of support are never more evident. Opinions come from every corner much like the transfer rumours, conjecture and downright lies that get thrown at us by a thousand news outlets and people ‘ITK’. By and large picking through the articles as an Albion fan it is usually pretty easy to dismiss the vast majority of links due to the likely size of the transfer fee required, wages requested and level of competition that they are likely to want to be involved in.
Under Jeremy Peace, words such as risk and ambition are seen as being dirty and have no place in any talk or meeting. The controlling rod by which he rules is absolutely rigid. There is no degree of flex to his approach. His recent misgivings about Academy football could yet see even tighter control of the purse strings in years to come.
Ever since Peace acquired the club he has been a polarizing figure amongst supporters with some rightfully applauding the way in which the infrastructure of the club and indeed our league standing have improved under his rule whilst others cannot see past his reluctance to spend hardly any of the vast amount of income he receives on the playing squad. Both arguments hold their individual merits.
For a person who likes to remain out of view in the background, leaving his inner circle to do his bidding, he has been relatively vocal in the media of late. The reason he chose to speak up? He felt that he was/is getting ripped off at Academy level and is getting little value for his £2.5 million annual investment thanks to the infamous ‘£209,000 rule’ for the transfer of players at that level. His time behind the microphone also allowed him to air his comments that we are a “mid-table Championship team” – let’s just go so far as to say that he certainly doesn’t pay himself like the Chairman of a club at that level. This statement has been scrutinized and debated endlessly. Suffice to say, I disagree.
There are a myriad of ways to air your opinion without alienating the people to whom you speak. In terms of negative PR at a time when strengthening the squad should be the number one priority, that was an own goal and a red card rolled into one and must’ve left the Head Coach scratching his head in disbelief. Trying to convince players of the requisite calibre to sign on the dotted line whilst the man at the head of the pyramid is speaking in such a manner paints a very peculiar picture.
The sole off-field focus appears to be concentrated on the finances of the club and getting absolutely everything done at a discount. A frugal approach is indeed a sensible approach and you will find many a supporter who will applaud Peace for the fact that bankruptcy, liquidation and points deductions are about as likely as us spending £50 million before the window shuts.
I strongly believe that to be successful you cannot stand still and expect your competition to do likewise. They won’t. Last season we took six points off Southampton yet thanks partly to a new £12.5 million signing in midfield and an investment of £8.5 million on a defender during the summer they left The Hawthorns with 3 points tucked in their pocket. Even since Saturday they have strengthened the squad further with the £15 million signing of forward Pablo Osvaldo, a player once linked with the Albion. Manager Pocchetino knows him from an 18 month spell playing under him at Espanyol and his (admittedly rich) owners have paid the money to bring him in. Other teams that finished below us last season have done likewise to their squads whilst 14 teams in the league have so far exceeded our transfer record on players this summer and it would be reasonable to believe that Arsenal, Man United and Newcastle will also join them in doing so.
Our approach of low or no transfer fee supplemented by high wages (our wage bill is predicted to be 15th highest this season so let’s not over-egg that particular pudding) is not all bad in the slightest and has seen some fantastic players brought into the club. Indeed, of the starting 11 on Saturday, 7 cost less than £1 milion with 4 costing nothing at all (I know that ‘free’ transfers are never in reality free, but the same applies to the rest of the teams in the league too). In total our outlay on the starting 11 was less than Pablo Osvaldo cost.
Somewhere between the Peace approach and that of seemingly the rest of the competition is a happy middle-ground in which we could operate above our current level and well within the boundaries of transfer-sanity. If I had £1 for every time the words Portsmouth, Leeds and Bradford used in relation to a relaxing of the Chairman’s cheque-book grip, I’m pretty sure that I could buy the club from him. It would make a refreshing change to see the club run by a fan as, to me, Jeremy Peace is a fan of nothing but the balance sheet.
One thing that I agree whole-heartedly with Jeremy Peace over is that the transfer window should be shut by the time the new season kicks off as the current situation doesn’t really help anyone. Unfortunately, the fact is that it doesn’t so we must act accordingly. I have read many a statement from fellow fans that as long as the required reinforcements are snapped in the obligatory shirt and scarf photo before deadline day that all will be fine. To me, going into the start of the season with a squad with more holes in than an old sock is nothing short of negligence. There are 9 points (6 now) and a cup match to contend with before the 2nd of September. For a team who have been renowned in recent years for the strength and quality of our midfield, the current state of affairs simply isn’t good enough. Going into a season with as many centre backs in the squad as fit midfielders is a baffling imbalance. Going into the season without a genuine winger in the squad has left many people, and I’d guess that Steve Clarke is amongst them, scratching their head.
In another recent article, which I have to say was very one-sided with little to no counter point or questioning, which allowed Jeremy Peace to expand on his reticence to pay transfer fees where they can be avoided. We were told that around £100 million has been spent on 140 players during his tenure, with “12-13 being sold for £65m” which he says represents “spectacularly bad” business. Another article allowed his opinion to be aired that the 20 most expensive transfer deals in our history had been total disasters also. When that list of 20 includes profits on Curtis Davies, Jason Koumas, Lee Hughes and even Nathan Ellington, not to mention four of the current squad, I can’t really agree with him.
Other points he got across included the notion that paying a fee for a full back was pretty much no longer an option so we must hobble by with a player who himself has stated that he’d be happy with making 15 appearances this season. Others included the fact that even the fitness equipment in the gym at the club are rented so as to avoid being “lumbered with it”. The notion of a 25 man squad was pulled apart and redesigned as a 22 man squad including 3 keepers and 19 outfield players. To me this allows little to no cover for the inevitable injuries and suspensions as even with a fully fit squad to pick from you’d only have 1 keeper and 3 outfield players not make the bench for any given match day squad.
Today is the 21st of August. There is still time to add to the squad before the window shuts and I fully expect Peace to make this happen. He simply has to. Whether they arrive in time for Everton remains to be seen. If not, we could well be sitting on 0 points with 36 matches remaining whilst also going into a cup match with a potentially stretched squad. Can this be deemed to be giving the Head Coach everything he needs to carry out his job to the best of his abilities?
Sensible investment in the playing squad over the next couple of weeks will simply not leave us in the financial mire. It’s just not going to happen. This no-risk approach is in no way borne out of necessity either and don’t ever allow yourself to believe it is. It is solely due to one man and his vision of squeezing the footballing penny at every single opportunity.
I just hope that it isn’t us, the true fans, who are left feeling short changed.
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