[Latecomer]

For what it's worth - and sure it will get me some stick - it looks like I'm the only vote for Irvine.

Yes, he looked out of his depth; yes, we weren't getting the best results; but actually, we played decent football (not great football I'll admit but he encouraged the players to pass and we certainly looked nicer on the eye than we do now), he had a decent defensive record (achieved 5-10 clean sheets in the run up to his sacking), he had terrible luck with officials decisions and we conceded a number of deflected/lucky goals, and, most importantly, the players liked him.

Under Pulis we might grind out more results but its clear that the players don't like his style of football and suggestions are we have lost out on players like Praet because of our style of play. He's changed the whole ethos of the club, which granted, was needed, but I'm not sure I like the new direction.

Sherwood is so arrogant and egotistical that even if he is a decent man manager who plays good football I wouldn't want him near our club.

I've always been so proud to be an albion fan, even when we were getting thumped every week in Div 1. I've struggled to say that now for a couple of years - we've made awful decisions on and off the pitch and the whole club seems to still have a cloud hanging over it.

Although it would have got us relegated, I fear that Pepe Mel might have been the best way to restore some pride. I would also have been happy to see RDM again if the opportunity arose.

[drewks]

For what it's worth - and sure it will get me some stick - it looks like I'm the only vote for Irvine.

Yes, he looked out of his depth; yes, we weren't getting the best results; but actually, we played decent football (not great football I'll admit but he encouraged the players to pass and we certainly looked nicer on the eye than we do now), he had a decent defensive record (achieved 5-10 clean sheets in the run up to his sacking), he had terrible luck with officials decisions and we conceded a number of deflected/lucky goals, and, most importantly, the players liked him.

Under Pulis we might grind out more results but its clear that the players don't like his style of football and suggestions are we have lost out on players like Praet because of our style of play. He's changed the whole ethos of the club, which granted, was needed, but I'm not sure I like the new direction.

Sherwood is so arrogant and egotistical that even if he is a decent man manager who plays good football I wouldn't want him near our club.

I've always been so proud to be an albion fan, even when we were getting thumped every week in Div 1. I've struggled to say that now for a couple of years - we've made awful decisions on and off the pitch and the whole club seems to still have a cloud hanging over it.

Although it would have got us relegated, I fear that Pepe Mel might have been the best way to restore some pride. I would also have been happy to see RDM again if the opportunity arose.

.... no stick from me, latecomer!
Agree with a lot of what you say and particularly like the part about 'pride'; TOTALLY agree about Mel and RDM who both seemed to want to do things "the Albion way" - then got sacked for it 

[May68]

I think we were sinking rapidly under RDM. I remember reading (think it may have been from Chris Lepkovski) that RDM wasn't even turning up to training most of the time and was letting his assistant do the work, as he was down in London looking after his restaurant. I think RDM benefited from taking over a team that had just got relegated playing nice football, and had managed to keep most of its Prem-class players to get it out of the Champ.

Latecomer I think you make some good points about Irvine. He definitely had some terrible luck (we seemed to be conceding from flukey deflected goals every week) and the style of play under him was not half as bad as some on this forum have made out. The problem was we were not very good without the ball under Irvine. As I remember it, we seemed to be stuck halfway between a pressing game and a sitting back game, and the players didn't look like they knew what to do without the ball. At least TP sorted that out (although so far this season we have looked far from solid on that front).

[Bierzo Baggie]

I would have chanced it for another season with Pepe Mel ....with his own back-up team to work with of course.

Early last season I watched my local team Ponferradina stuff Real Betis 4-1 in the Spanish second division. Ponferradina is a small, well organized club, punching above their weight after spending most of their history as a semi-pro team. Betis were a disorganized mess that day, they didn't look like getting back into the top flight for a long time.....
Then Pepe Mel came back, transformed them (again) and they won the league.

This season Pepe Mel's Betis will give a good showing I'm sure. The defence is a bit dodgy but they play some nice football. Could he have adapted to the English game? We will never know. It was a bold and slightly bizarre decision for Albion to sign him in the first place but maybe he was worth the risk....

[Salopbaggie]

Unfortunately this debate over whether TP is the right man to be leading the Baggies is getting far to polarised into black and white with no shades of grey at all.

With the notable exception of one or maybe two posters, I have not really seen anyone posting Pullis out (yet).  I have seen a notable number of posters expressing concerns, many of which I share, as do I think do many others.

Regarding the comments about optimism, the dictionary definition is; noun: optimism 1. hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.  Well at the moment with our transfer dealings so far, our team selection and tactics and our performances, so far I see very little to be hopeful or have confidence about.  I am certainly optimistic we can improve and do so under Pullis, if we don't, at least we may have two local derbies to look forward to next year.

In terms of feeling embarrassed, I feel far more embarrassed that we managed one shot on target in the first half against a division one team and having them sing "Premier League your having a laugh" (embarrassed because I agreed with them).  I also feel embassed when our HC says in a interview "its been very entertaining for the supporters" might have been if those supporter were from Port Vale!!!

Yes we looked fair against the 10 men of Chelsea in the second half, would we have looked so good if they had 11 men on the pitch? I doubt it.  I feel embarrassed when our own fans constantly boo one of our own players.

But do I feel embarrassed when one of my fellow posters posts something with which I disagree, not at all, they are entitled to their opinion just as I am entitled to mine and without differing opinions these boards would become very boring very quickly.  Differing views and the opportunity to discuss is what makes these boards worthwhile.

I think the problem many have with the club is, we can all see areas were we need to strengthen and improve, but we do not appear to be looking at anyone to fill them.  LB is a prime example, we can all argue all day as to whether Brunt makes a good LB, from my prospective he is ok, not as good as he is a left sided midfielder but adequate against most teams.  Who plays LB if and when Brunt is injured? Who steps in?..... Lescott?

So in summary come on TP & JP give us something to be optimistic about, if we go down fighting so be it, but "it is better to have tried and failed then not to have tried at all" (who else got that from their grandparents?). 

Use what is left of the window to bring in some players who can instil the optimism back into the fans and do a little more on the pitch than play shots in with us being the defending side.

[Slick_Footwork]

Good football under Irvine? Am I missing something?

The football started going down the day that numpty came in.

We went to a poor Leicester side and didn't have a shot on target. 1 shot on target against a mid table Newcastle side in a 2-0 loss AT HOME in what was possibly the worst home performance I've ever seen from us given the quality of our squad (At least in the Megson era, we had a poor squad). Lets not forget the home games against West Ham and Everton in the league where they bossed us.

He played dull boring dross but didn't even pick the right players to do the job.

In my opinion we were LUCKY to pick up the points we did under him. Lucky Leicester scored an own goal in the game against them. Lucky Clattenberg missed an obvious pen when Palace were 2-0 up and bossing us on our own patch.

Pulis was a massive improvement on the basis that we at least showed some pride in all of our home games, even the ones we lost. The performances against West Ham in the cup, Chelsea, Southampton were actually exciting. I don't remember any exciting games under Irvine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from happy with the signings and direction of the team so far this season BUT that doesn't make me forget what Irvine served up. The decision to employ him in the first place is ultimately what has caused his mess.

[May68]

4-0 win against Burnley?
And at least Irvine beat the Villa!

Seriously we were just talking about style of play rather than results. I think anyone could see that the results with Irvine were probably going to send us down.

We could win the Champions League but I still wouldn't find parking the bus, long ball, time-wasting tactics fun to watch. No amount of wins will ever change that.

[Slick_Footwork]

4-0 win against Burnley?
And at least Irvine beat the Villa!

Seriously we were just talking about style of play rather than results. I think anyone could see that the results with Irvine were probably going to send us down.

We could win the Champions League but I still wouldn't find parking the bus, long ball, time-wasting tactics fun to watch. No amount of wins will ever change that.

To be fair, the Burnley game we played decent stuff, but this is the only game I remember being entertaining under Irvine.

We beat the Villa, but I'd like to think any manager could mastermind a win against them at home given they had 10 men for 60 minutes. Even in that game, Varela was star man yet shunned by both Irvine and Pulis because of work rate (presumably).

Incidentally saw him score a goal for Porto the other day... A side who would probably wipe the floor with us...

I'm not a fan of Pulis football either, however I think that time is a healer and its easy to forget how bad the football was under Irvine. I was going through the individual games earlier, it was absolutely awful - especially at home.

So while Pulis' football has been ugly so far this season - he's not inherited a side playing good football and turned us into dross. We were struggling to create anything under the previous regimes too.

[May68]

And come to think of it, the two home losses on consecutive weekends in April to QPR then Leicester were the two most gutless displays of the season for me. I don't remember seeing much pride on the faces of the supporters as we trundled home on the metro after either of those games.

But yes I agree that we've had to watch some dross under both managers. The last two years have in general not been fun to be an Albion fan.

[Worldclassalbion]

Pulis