[Devongone]

I'm afraid your board have gone for staying up at any price. Greedy Sam will certainly try to earn his bonus. And fans increasingly dissatisfied with the garbage they are watching will go into a Newcastle-style stand off with the owners. Stay-up and you'll be in the shit because only more of the same will keep you up. Go down and your boing will already have been surgically removed.

Your owners are as far away as they could be whilst remaining on the same planet. Protests won't even fall on deaf ears - there'll be no ears interested in hearing anything. You may as well have opted for autopilot.

I hope I'm wrong, but my club exited the EFL on a series of bad decisions from an owner who didn't give a damn. Yours sees the Premier League as a cash cow, no more than that, and unceremoniously ditched a decent man for one who will focus on the bottom line. Big Sam has some good qualities, but he won't put a smile on many faces. If the pitch becomes no more than a front for a business model you are dead in the water. I hope I'm wrong and that he wins for you and proves himself the new Bielsa.

[Slick_Footwork]

As for the big Sam allegations, I don't think he did a lot wrong when in charge of England, but he was naive to the fact that he might've been set up. His actual advice was just factual truth about the 3rd party ownership situation. As for the bribe allegations, I don't like that or corruption generally, but I believe it's probably rife across the industry. That doesn't make it right, but I believe he's not alone.

Slick, I hope if I ever get done for a criminal offence, that you can be the judge   You can't be set up, if you do not do anything wrong.  The very fact that he negotiated a £400,000 fee before giving the advice on how to get around the player 3rd party ownership, does not strike me as a mate giving another mate advice.  Even if it was, what would be said if it was someone giving advice to a burglar on how to get around a house alarm system.  The point is it was advice given by the England manager on how to break the F.A. rules, advice he charged a lot of money for.

As for everybody being 'at it', that may very well be true, but as I heard so many time from my great granny, "well two wrongs don't make a right" .

I'm not saying it's right, far from it. Just that I care primarily about what he can do on the pitch for West Brom.

I don't get particularly endeared to anyone in football, players or coaches, so his off the field antics mean little to me.

Just saying if we really want a squeaky clean coach, they probably don't exist!

---

I'm afraid your board have gone for staying up at any price. Greedy Sam will certainly try to earn his bonus. And fans increasingly dissatisfied with the garbage they are watching will go into a Newcastle-style stand off with the owners. Stay-up and you'll be in the shit because only more of the same will keep you up. Go down and your boing will already have been surgically removed.

Your owners are as far away as they could be whilst remaining on the same planet. Protests won't even fall on deaf ears - there'll be no ears interested in hearing anything. You may as well have opted for autopilot.

I hope I'm wrong, but my club exited the EFL on a series of bad decisions from an owner who didn't give a damn. Yours sees the Premier League as a cash cow, no more than that, and unceremoniously ditched a decent man for one who will focus on the bottom line. Big Sam has some good qualities, but he won't put a smile on many faces. If the pitch becomes no more than a front for a business model you are dead in the water. I hope I'm wrong and that he wins for you and proves himself the new Bielsa.

Of course it's stay up at any cost, its the same for every team in the league! Relegation means freefall.

On the plus side, Big Sam is largely criticised for his style of play but that can't harm him much here. He's inheriting a team that can barely score a goal, so it couldn't possibly get any worse on that front. We can only improve. Never has any of big Sam's 'dull' teams scored less than 1 goal per game and that's what we were serving up with Bilic!

[theo_luddite]

His last attempt, I think was Everton. Within days of arriving he made them suddenly much harder to beat. I know because they played us. Took him a bit longer to to make them so hard to beat they could win a few games on the bounce but by the end of the season, any sniff of Everton in relegation problems had long gone. The Everton fans were only too pleased to see him given a Zero Hours contract extension for the following season as a result.

Thing was - they weren't as deep in the mire as you are now, and I'm not sure he's really dug anyone out that is.

Reportedly he wouldn't talk to us when we were in a similar position because we couldn't score goals. He's all about improving the defence. Clearly you've added a few more £m's or at least £000,000's on than we were ever going to offer for a 6-9 month deal because you aren't scoring for fun this season either. Good luck, hope you stay up but don't look to see any entertaining football even if he gets to blow £200m on players (wages and transfer fees) that can supposedly entertain.

The Bolton Chairman, Garside battled on for a few years after Allardyce had left, but he had seriously left them in queer street with the way he spent money for no really great return. A very similar story to L666s if you really dig into it without the European side thrown in. Garside was willing to walk away from what he's put in, but the cost of running that club was unsustainable for anyone that followed.

It wan't just what happened in Bolton - they were running coaching systems all over the north of England that all needed funding - my nephew was in one of them at the time in the hotbed of English football that is Shipley as a 6 year old. Look it up on Google Maps. Didn't live there but that's where one of their West Yorkshire operations was based just as an example.

He's managed a lot of Prima Donna League games - he's won what?

Manager of the Month a few times.

Even Wigan managed to win the FA Cup before they fell like a stone.

Good luck chaps, you'll need it with this guy.

[wba13]

A small snippet from the Athletic, this shows how much bad things had got between Bilic and the Board. For those of us that wanted Bilic to stay there was no chance.

If you havent read it, the article in the athletic gives a review of the relationship Bilic had with the board and the troubles behind the scenes.
Bilic was going to resign on 25th October but was persuaded not to.
Albion were looking to sack him after the Fulham game but no one was available.
Final nail was against Newcastle and SA became available.
The way it happened and the timing stinks, but the relationship wasnt good and wasnt going to be continued.
Onwards and upwards from here. COYB!!

[Baggiebob(BBB)]

I don't understand all the fuss, though I do agree with a number of points made, coz as far as I'm concerned the manager could be Donald Duck providing he gets the players playing, we see reasonably attractive football, and we get enough points to survive.

It is after all the Albion I support.

[wba1978]

Don't have a problem with Sam coming in. Will do better than Bilic... FACT!
People say Grant is dross, fair enough, but he's scored 1 in 9. Ollie Watkins has scored 6 in 11 in a team creating far more chances.
I just think Grant is lacking confidence and will come right (if Sam plays him).
Lets face it, if he put that chance away against City the vibe would be a whole lot different.
He got in a good position, but unfortunately couldn't execute... It happens..
Looking forward to seeing what will happen for the rest of the season now...
Baffling selections and questionable tactics, nice guy or not, he had to go...

[Salopbaggie]

Some of these posts knocking Bilic are a bit much, how short memories are in football. It was not that long ago many on here were saying he was the greatest thing to ever happen and his substitutions were acts of genius, to inherit the squad he did and with a few changes made them unbeaten in all but one of his first 21 games not to mention winning promotion in his first full year. We have to say he was not fully backed by the club after our promotion, but all of a sudden its all his fault, he does not know what he is doing. It just shows what football has become when fans berate someone like that and would prefer someone who has been filmed taking money for information on how to break FA rules, as England manager, bribing agents and was investigated for other transfer 'dodgy dealings'. I am not saying BS will not be a good manager, but there is no doubt he is not of the highest moral standing and worse he is stupid because the only thing worse than keep doing it, is keep getting caught doing it. I am also worried keep hearing, "he keeps teams in the division", same thing said about a certain Mr Pullis.

[wba13]

Still cannot see where he wasn’t backed .
Periera
Diangana
Robinson
Krovinavic
Ivanovic
Grant
That’s six signings got though the door that were all players Bilic wanted.
It’s not Dowlings fault that Bilic asked for these players on the small budget we had.
Loved Bilic the man but 10 wins in a calendar year makes depressing reading , only 1 win in 13 is even worse.
Didn’t want him gone but can see why he has. I will get totally behind Alladyce as I’m Albion though and through.

[Salopbaggie]

Still cannot see where he wasn’t backed .
Periera
Diangana
Robinson
Krovinavic
Ivanovic
Grant
That’s six signings got though the door that were all players Bilic wanted.
It’s not Dowlings fault that Bilic asked for these players on the small budget we had.
Loved Bilic the man but 10 wins in a calendar year makes depressing reading , only 1 win in 13 is even worse.
Didn’t want him gone but can see why he has. I will get totally behind Alladyce as I’m Albion though and through.

How he was not backed is pretty clear, when you get promoted you need to not only need to keep the better players who got you promoted, but you need to add more quality. The board achieved the first, but failed dismally on the second . Its not all about money, but when you think Leeds spent in excess of £100 million and they did not really go pushing the boat out, we spent just over £30 million and that does not include any money coming in (we did not pay for Robinson and the Periera deal was already done, so only really Grady and Krovinavic to consider as additions really . We did bring in a very experienced 36 year old who has cost us a couple of goals this season and probably at least one game. As for Grant I have no opinion yet as he has not been in a position to really show what he can do, but he looks hopeful. On the other side our most problematic part of the pitch has been the defence, a problem we have known about for some time, so what did the board do? They sell one of our top first team central defenders, after the window had closed to replace him and days before a game he was supposed to be playing in, without even consulting the manager,.................... That is how they did not support him.

[wba13]

It’s a COVID year less money all round remember we do not have a big spending money man behind us.Leeds villa Fulham and most premiership clubs have big money backing we don’t. You cannot ruin our club by spending X amount of money we don’t have. We are in a better place financially due to our promotion remember what Jenkins said on leaving it was imperative we got up or things would have had to change. The extra 25mill we could have got through promotion was lost to sky due to none playing and there have been no gate money or commercial money or advertising but we still have to pay all the staff. This is a ridiculous year and a difficult couple of seasons . If and when we do get sold and I’m sure there are things going on we know nothing about I think within the next few months we could possibly be sold.