Interesting

[Omegstrat6]

Club captain Jed Wallace once described being summoned to former Albion boss Carlos Corberan's office as like being sent to see the headmaster

Fast-forward 13 months and it is very clear the discipline Corberan instilled disappeared with him when he left the building.

The Baggies' players have since chewed up and spat out Albion bosses at an alarming rate.
Eric Ramsay is the third permanent incumbent of the Throstles' hot-seat since the Spaniard took his leave just over a year ago.

The fact his two predecessors had such short tenures tells you all you need to know about how their stewardship went.

Tony Mowbray was dismissed after a disastrous Easter weekend where his players seemed to visibly surrender in Midlands derbies against Coventry and Derby.

Ryan Mason outlasted Mowbray's 17-game tenure by 10 matches, largely thanks to spirited fightbacks against Oxford and Swansea when the former Spurs coach's head appeared to be on the chopping block.

Mason's downfall seemed not to be a lack of commitment from the players but a lack of focus and discipline.

For much of the season, the Baggies topped the Championship chart for mistakes leading to opposition shots on goal, while red cards at Coventry and Hull also proved So, after their individual errors cost Mason his job, the Albion players now have their third boss in just 43 league games.

And it hasn't started well.

Common issues reared their ugly head in Ramsay's first game as Albion went 2-0 down to high-flying Middlesbrough before a spirited fightback was rendered pointless by the Baggies conceding yet another late goal ? a bad habit they have not been able to shake this season.

If there was optimism to be taken from the fact the team at least achieved parity before Boro's late winner, there were no such positives to take from Tuesday night as Albion were beaten 5-0 at home by relegation rivals Norwich

That is Albion's heaviest home defeat outside of the top flight and the way the players rolled over and allowed the Canaries to rattle in goal after goal spoke volumes about them

Tony Mowbray gave BBC Radio WM these telling words in his final press conference as Albion boss: "I'm not concerned if the talent is there, I'm concerned if the character is there."
The culture at Albion has to be heavily questioned at this point. Results have, for over a year now, been steadily deteriorating.

While some big players have left the club in that time, on paper there still seems to be more than enough in this squad for it to be competitive However, since "headmaster" Corberan left, it feels like every other incumbent of the Baggies dugout has, at best, been treated like a substitute teacher.

And some might argue the current situation is more like Lord of the Flies, where the players try to govern themselves with disastrous results.

That's not to say Ramsay can't be the man to restore order. He has currently only had two games and a mere nine days in the job after all.

But it underlines the size of the job before him and the anarchy he seems to have inherited.

It also shows, quite clearly, that the problems at Albion run much deeper than who is sitting in the dugout.

Good post bomber and some interesting points raised!

Ultimately, the buck must stop at the manager as it is their job to get the best out of all available resources. A good manager supports and inspires but also sets expectations and parameters. Nonetheless, it is hard not to argue that the players themselves, both individually and collectively, must shoulder a not inconsiderable portion of the blame for poor performances and, particularly, any lack of desire. I'm in complete agreement with Roy that a pre-requisite for any professional footballer must be character/ attitude. If players do not show consistent competitiveness (the importance of which Corberan always emphasised ) they should not be on the pitch.

Of course, given the lengthy run of poor results (despite some often decent performances) this will naturally lead to a degree of despondency and heads beginning to drop. This is when leaders need to step up. Most important of all of course is the leadership of the manager but key players themselves certainly have their part to play. As regards demonstrating passion and determination several players (e.g. Wallace, Bielik, Styles, Molumby, Grant, Mikey) have shown that they can do this in the past and they now need to put the shambles of Tuesday behind them, reset and, at the very least, demonstrate renewed grit and desire against Derby.

As for the players being allowed too much leeway under Mason and trying to govern themselves, I am less convinced. Over quite a few matches, players showed that they could play for both each other and the manager. They demonstrated that they could show the "togetherness" demanded by Mason and also play for him. Despite some decent performances, it seems to me that Mason failed to pick up points through a combination of sometimes bizarre selections (Wildsmith over Griffiths eg), tactics (sitting back on leads rather than killing games) and an inability to instil the defensive discipline that may well have prevented us conceding so many late goals.

I don't doubt that Mason did not adopt the head-masterly approach of Corberan but dont necessarily see this as being the main driver in his ultimate failure to succeed. It is true that the break down in discipline that led to the stupid and costly action by Molumby at Coventry, for example, may arguably not have happened under Corberan but, equally, we did start to play more attacking football under Mason which is something we saw scant evidence of under Corberan's later time with us. Perhaps Corberan was too rigid (Roy seemed to hint at this during his brief tenure with us last season) while Mason was not rigid enough? I have a feeling that, if nothing else, Ramsay may be more strict than Mason in terms of discipline but improved results will depend on more than that!