West Brom season review as big changes lined up at The Hawthorns

The head coach’s first full campaign in charge at The Hawthorns took the Baggies to the play-off semi-final, where eventual promotion-winners Southampton proved too strong. We address five key segments of Albion’s 2023/24 campaign with the final word on the season.

Successes

Taking the squad into the play-offs has to be deemed a success. Albion stood firm for the most part over the course of seven months to keep the dream of promotion to the Premier League alive well into May.

Few truly fancied Corberan’s side to have a genuine crack at promotion, perhaps only the Spaniard’s efforts the previous season pointed to a possibility. Albion’s squad was an ageing one built by several managers, with a number of players coming towards the end of their time at the club.

The key to the team’s success was a solid rearguard. Albion led the way for clean sheets for most of the campaign as, for the most part, goalkeeper Alex Palmer and the dependable defensive unit of Cedric Kipre, Kyle Bartley, Darnell Furlong and Conor Townsend held strong. Shutouts were initially tough to come by until late September but between then and the new year, aided by a tactical switch, the Baggies were more or less impenetrable. The goals against column was only bettered by Leicester and Leeds overall. A January sprinkle of magic dust from Mikey Johnston, the post-AFCON form of Grady Diangana and emergence of starlet Tom Fellows kept the side firing despite faltering away form and a leakier defence. Albion longed for a striker with hardly any available and while other attackers helped – it just wasn’t enough.

Failures

Having achieved a fifth-placed finish after holding on to the position for so long and finding themselves some way short of Leeds and Southampton above them, a play-off defeat could never be deemed a failure.

In isolation, Corberan’s side failed to show up in the semi-final second leg at St Mary’s. Prior to that Albion threatened to limp over the line with three straight defeats towards the end of the campaign.

The form away from The Hawthorns was undoubtedly a weak point as defeats away from home proved a regular occurrence and problematic, especially around the mid-point of the campaign.

While the home form was fifth in the division, form away from the Black Country had Albion down in 14th.

Corberan’s side struggled as an attacking outlet at times. Awful injury luck for Josh Maja, in his debut season, and Daryl Dike meant too much emphasis and responsibility on Brandon Thomas-Asante. Jed Wallace tried to help shoulder the burden but it was tough at times.

Manager

Corberan can be very satisfied with his efforts in 2023/24. The driven head coach, though, will doubtless be thinking “what if?” and searching for marginal gains that went against his side, although the job he did with the squad at hand was most admirable.

The Spaniard’s efforts have understandably grabbed the attention of rivals at this level and, potentially, above and that says much about his work in a first full season in charge.

Baggies supporters are largely devoted to “King Carlos”. There are some that would rather watch a more swash-buckling brand, or see different substitutes at tweaked times, but we have more or less only seen Corberan with one group of players so far.

Building a squad – albeit with limited resources – could offer more insight to the 41-year-old as a coach, even after 18 months here.

Off the field

It’s been a monumental season for Albion off the field as Shilen Patel’s takeover from Guochuan Lai in February was confirmed.

Not a day too soon, either. The club had run out of money and were surviving day-to-day on high-interest loans. Mercifully, the stormy clouds over The Hawthorns began to blow clear upon Patel’s arrival in a £60million move factoring all costs, but with the club valued down at £15m-£20m. Patel’s presence at games and among fans has been a true highlight.

There have been unsavoury moments away from the football. The violent Wolves FA Cup tie scenes were terrible to witness and lengthy investigations are rightly ongoing. There was an arrest after a racism allegation at home to Blues and the recent internal suspension due to complaints of discrimination, which is also being investigated.

What next?

Keeping hold of Corberan is the desire of everybody at the club as the boss faces a serious bit of squad building and reorganising this summer. On the pitch, there has to be a desire to at least repeat last season’s efforts.

That aside there is much for new owner Patel to address.

At some point during the summer he is expected to set out, at least internally, more his vision for the club, as well as the structure, among other things including important talks with the head coach.

The King’s Council investigation into the historic £3.7m Jeremy Peace loan in 2014 remains ongoing and is later than initially billed with deadlines knocked back.

There are very interested eyes on the outcome there.

It has been explained that finances for at least the next year will remain tight due to financial fair play regulations. It will take smart working from all involved to be strong again.