'No-one is more disappointed...' - West Brom midfielder on 'toxic' collapse last term
Nobody of an Albion persuasion will remember the final weeks of the 2024/25 campaign with any fondness.
A desperate collapse on the pitch led to a folding of Championship play-off aspirations and head Tony Mowbray's sacking, just 95 days after his romantic return to The Hawthorns after 16 years away.
A disastrous Easter double defeat against Coventry and Derby sealed the fate. As one experienced member of the Baggies squad put it, things went "toxic" and unpleasant for all.
Midfielder Alex Mowatt, 30, who with four years' services is one of Albion's longer-servers, felt the jump from the meticulously-drilled Carlos Corberan to a more licence-to-roam and attack-at-will Mowbray approach was a big one.
"The fans rightly get angry when we're losing or disappointed in the way that we played," Mowatt told the Express & Star.
"But as players we take that responsibility and there's no-one more disappointed than us when we know how bad a game has been.
"The Coventry game (on Good Friday) still stays in my head about how bad it was. It was toxic in the end and the season just seemed to go like that, downhill.