Steve Clarke appointed as Head Coach

08 June 2012

Albion have announced the appointment of Steve Clarke as Head Coach to succeed Roy Hodgson. We have to admit that our intitial reaction at BOING Towers was "who???", followed by a bit of light research and finishing up with a rather indifferent sort of "oh". Reading around on the likes of Facebook it seems that's a reaction shared by a lot of other supporters, many of whom are trying to put a brave face on what seems to be something of a disappointing end to an exciting search and some of whom are downright angry.

However, Clarke has been assistant manager to a lot of very big names since retiring from the playing side after Chelsea's European Cup win over Stuttgart fourteen years ago, in itself a pretty tidy way to finish your career. Jose Morinho rates him very highly, and he's learned from the likes of Sir Bobby Robson and Kenny Dalglish along the way. He may lack experience on the managerial side, but we have Dan Ashworth to help out there and a lot of comments recently have expressed trust in him and Peace to make the right appointment so it would be slightly hypocitical to doubt them now. From what we gather, Chris Hughton was never seriously being considered despite all the media speculation and would have wanted to bring in his whole own backroom team anyway, and Ralf Rangnik may have sounded interesting but could well have gone the way of a whole series of overseas managers who've failed dismally in the Premiership. The rest of the names were mainly the same old ones that get trotted out over and over again every time a job comes up for grabs and it was actually getting hard to be inspired by any of the choices available.

While it may also appear to be a cheap option, Albion have only a limited amount of funds at their disposal and paying it out in compensation means that less is available for the playing squad - especially when the top priority now must be to get Ben Foster brought here permanently, or at least an equally talented alternative. From what we gather, Jonas Olsson wants to leave regardless, something that is sure to count against Clarke in many people's eyes if it happens, and Youssouf Mulumbu and his agent have been making noises on the 'Net about getting a move to a bigger club.

This is certainly going to be a key period in Albion's progress and we wish him all the best.

Previous Stories:

  20 March 2012:  Paul Scharner on Private Passions

  04 March 2012:  Sacked in the Morning IV

  13 February 2012:  Sacked in the morning III

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