OPINION
It seems as though West Brom might miss out on Slavisa Jokanovic.
According to Sun journalist Mike McGrath via his personal Twitter account on Wednesday, Albion’s interest in the former Fulham manager is cooling and current caretaker boss James Shan could be be handed the job until the end of the season.
West Brom sacked Darren Moore on Saturday after the 1-1 draw against rock-bottom Ipswich, and although they seemed to want a speedy appointment to replace Moore, they may have squandered the chance to do that.
Shan look set to be in the dug-out on Wednesday night when the Baggies play against Swansea at The Hawthorns and McGrath claims that he will also be in charge of the trip to Brentford on Saturday.
After that it’s the international break, two weeks where chief executive Mark Jenkins will have to hire someone as the club’s manager.
Jimmy Shan will get two games to earn #WestBrom caretaker job until end of the season. Jokanovic interest cooled pic.twitter.com/2nh4OieQDH
— Mike McGrath (@mcgrathmike) March 13, 2019
However it seems that Jenkins might not be hiring anyone at all, with 10 games to go in the regular Championship season, and that could prove to be the killer blow to West Brom’s promotion hopes.
Shan is a good coach. He has been working for West Brom since 2006, working his way up from an Under-7s coach, to first-team coach, nurturing the likes of Chris Wood, Saido Berahino, Sam Field and Izzy Brown in the process.
He might do well against Swansea and Brentford. Fans will surely welcome a first home win in the league since Boxing Day if the Baggies earn three points on Wednesday, and victory at Griffin Park could be a major step towards a certain top-six spot.
However Jenkins has got all of this totally wrong.
Sacking Moore with 10 games to go, without a replacement lined-up is kamikaze leadership.
Missing out on a manager with two promotions on his CV like Jokanovic just goes to show how ill-managed this whole affair has been and every single West Brom fan should want Jenkins to be sacked if Shan gets the job until the end of the season.
It’s not because Shan is bad, it’s because this is a situation which the club does not need to be in right now.