Away from the Saido Berahino transfer saga, from the outside looking in all is seemingly well at West Bromwich Albion, but listen closer and you may start to hear the start of a growing discontent amongst The Hawthorns’ faithful.
Tony Pulis joined West Brom at a time when things were looking desperate. Alan Irvine’s appointment in the summer before the 2014/15 season had proved to be as uninspiring as many thought it would be, and his dismissal so short in to his tenure as head coach came as no surprise. Pulis joined with one task; keep West Brom in the Premier League.
Pulis achieved his task by doing what he does best. He made the Baggies hard to beat, ensured the defence was solid, resulting in West Brom having the second most clean sheets in the Premier League. Results were based on defend and counter and, apart from a few occasions, it worked superbly. However, what it also meant was that ‘attractive’ football was rarely seen.
It was a case of needs must for West Brom. If staying in the Premier League meant sacrificing flowing, passing football then that was the price they needed to pay. There are surely no West Brom fans that would argue otherwise.
Fast forward to today, and West Brom are still playing the same style of football. Away from home there is rarely any impetus on attack as Pulis sets the stall out to defend and, hopefully, counter. It results in players playing in positions they wouldn’t normally play (Rickie Lambert the winger, Chris Brunt the left-back, for example), and creates slow and, frankly, boring football.
It is of little surprise that West Brom have only found the net three times in their first five games. The striker, be it Salomon Rondon, Saido Berahino or (if played as a striker) Lambert, can cut an isolated figure, trying to feed off whatever scraps of service they can get. On average, West Brom have only created 10.6 shots at goal a game so far, which is fewer shots than any one team has had against the Albion in any game this season, including a Stoke team that only had nine players.
And, although statistics aren’t everything, it must be worrying that over the first five games on average West Brom have only held 39.4% possession. Only twice have West Brom shared over 40% possession this season, firstly against a very out-of-sorts Chelsea and then against a nine man Stoke City. Possession doesn’t always mean positive results, however the fact is it shows West Brom struggle to hold on to the ball, which in turn means they struggle to create anything which then, in turn, means West Brom often produce very negative, dour displays.
Should West Brom want to progress past being a relegation battling/mid table team then this is something they need to address. But with Pulis at the helm, will the mindset ever change? Whilst playing this style of football, even if Albion continue to comfortably stay in the Premier League, what attack-minded star player would want to join?
As well as style of play, there are questions over playing personnel and transfer business. Since Pulis’ arrival, West Brom have played with no recognised full backs, instead choosing to play Craig Dawson and Chris Brunt, resulting in the omission of natural full back players, Sebastian Pocognoli and Christian Gamboa. Out of the two, Pocognoli must wonder what he has done, having featured in only one game under Pulis (a 7-0 win over Gateshead), and not even being picked when Brunt has been injured. If the full backs are deemed not good enough, why are they still there? And, more importantly, why weren’t any signed in the summer?
And for a team that bases so much on counter attack, West Brom lack pace. In years gone by, under Roy Hodgson, Albion were able to exploit teams by playing counter attacking football due to the pace of players like Jerome Thomas and Peter Odemwingie; now, West Brom find themselves struggling for pace in midfield meaning when the ball is inevitably hoofed forward there are very few that can chase on to it.
But for all the criticisms, West Brom still find themselves doing OK. They’ve only lost to Manchester City and Chelsea, games they’d expect to lose, and only conceded to those two teams as well. Three clean sheets in five games is a tremendous start defensively, and that will be part of why West Brom will most likely stay up this season.
But once the season has finished, West Brom do need to assess where they want to go, whether they want to push higher up the league and even dream of maybe pushing for Europe. Then they must ask whether Tony Pulis can adapt to make the Albion a stronger threat to opposing teams, not just a team hard to beat.
