West Bromwich Albion’s problems don’t stem from the dugout, but rather the players that are out on the pitch.
That is the claim being made by Chris Lepkowski on the latest edition of The Liquidator podcast. West Brom haven’t quite received their full dose of the ‘new manager bounce’ so far under Sam Allardyce, picking up just one point since the former England boss was put in charge.
And according to Lepkowski, it isn’t necessarily his fault, as the players don’t seem to be putting in the effort that fans expect given where the Baggies are in the table:
“I’m seeing something very worrying that they weren’t doing it for [Slaven] Bilic, they’re not doing it for Allardyce. I think they’re the problem… We’ve probably got the weakest team we’ve had in this level for many years.
“But you expect to see a response to a new manager… you would hope there will be an impact or a want to impress that manager to want to say to that manager, ‘you know what, I’m coming into this team now. And I’m gonna make sure you don’t drop me because, I want to stay in this division… I want to be a Premier League player next season.’ That’s something that really troubles me.”
TIF Thoughts on Lepkowski’s remarks on the WBA players…
On one hand, there were some questions raised when Allardyce was appointed about whether or not his style would work this time around seeing as he’s been out of the game for so long, and to some extent, he is being found out with some of the results that they’ve had.
But at the same time, if the two head coaches aren’t getting the results needed, then you need to look at the common denominator from across the season, and that is the players who haven’t been doing very well either. So when the new boss comes in, should it be up to him to do the motivating, or does that job need to fall on the players?
And if neither methods are working, then is it a case of getting the players in who are motivated to keep the team up?