West Bromwich Albion reporter Joseph Masi has expressed his concern over the state of the club and the contract situations surrounding a number of players this summer.
West Brom’s dwindling hopes of making a push for the play-offs took another serious blow last night as they lost 2-0 at The Hawthorns, with fans making their views very clear about how frustrated they were after the game.
The result means that the club are still looking for their first win since Steve Bruce took over the club, with four defeats from his first five games in charge. However, given that they only won three of Valerien Ismael’s last 10 games in charge, it may well be that the players are the ones to blame rather than the manager, and these problems could well carry on into next season.
Speaking on the Express and Star YouTube channel after the game, Masi explained how there are a number of players on long-term contracts and that based on how they have been performing so far this season, the club will be in a very difficult position as nobody will want to come and take them off Albion’s hands.
He said: “The contracts thing’s a real worry; Karlan Grant, Callum Robinson, Kyle Bartley, Jake Livermore, Matt Phillips, Darnell Furlong – they’re all on long deals.
“I’m not saying those players all need to leave, but if you want to refresh this group – which, let’s be honest, any manager probably would – they’re all on long-term deals, can Albion offload them? After this season, it’s going to be very, very unlikely.”
TIF Thoughts on Joseph Masi’s comments about West Bromwich Albion’s contract situation…
Is Bruce the right man for West Brom?
Yes!
No!
Whilst Masi might think it will be hard to get rid of that list of players, this is of course assuming that the club will want to get rid of them this summer in the transfer window.
Although there is no doubt that this season has not been great for West Brom, especially when you consider that the teams that came down with them from the Premier League in Fulham and Sheffield United are both in the thick of a promotion challenge, for them to be languishing this far behind is disastrous.
But in Bruce, they have a manager that has been promoted to the top flight four times, and a number of the players that they have now were part of the side that achieved promotion in 2019/20, so that should really be the core that they want to build the club around rather than looking to sell them on.
While it has been a bumpy start, they owe it to themselves to stick together and try to see it through next season rather than quickly throwing players aside.
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