OPINION
Charlton manager Lee Bowyer is reportedly on West Bromwich Albion’s shortlist of managers for the permanent role at The Hawthorns and it’s hard to see why.
According to The Sun, the English boss has impressed after leading Charlton to the League One play-offs in his rookie season and that has been enough to see him work his way onto the Baggies’ radar.
The national newspaper claim that West Brom are looking to mount a Championship promotion challenge next season after not being able to win promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
Given that West Brom want to be competing at the top-end of the Championship next season, they need to erase Bowyer off their reported shortlist as it’s too risky of a gamble to believe he is the right man.
The 42-year-old succeeded Karl Robinson at Charlton in March 2018 when the London club were ninth after only one win out of their last eight matches.
Yet when you consider that the London club were good enough to be sitting ninth, if you ignore their poor run of form, it’s hard to know how hard a task Bowyer had when picking up the reigns Robinson dropped.
The Championship is a hard league and even experienced managers like Tony Pulis aren’t guaranteed to get a club promoted, see Middlesbrough for more details, so surely Bowyer couldn’t be expected to win promotion with West Brom in what would be only his second job in management?
The English boss would clearly need time and patience so given West Brom’s ambitions for next season and the fact they were previously ruthless when it came to getting rid of Darren Moore, who got them to third in the table, hiring Bowyer is too big a risk to take.
This especially when you consider that West Brom need some stability after getting rid of Moore, and having an unproven manager who’d be instantly under pressure at the first sign of bad form, isn’t the way to achieve that.