And so it has been confirmed: Slaven Bilic has “won” the Premier League’s sack race. What I don’t get is why. Sacking a manager is something that you do when your club is underperforming, and West Brom haven’t been. They’re rubbish, sure, but that isn’t Bilic’s fault. The relegation scrap is exactly where they were expected to be.
Fact is, their squad simply isn’t good enough for the top flight. It is made up of Championship players, and the only investment in it since promotion has been to sign Grady Diangana (who had already been at the club on loan) and Karlan Grant (he’s shit)
Furthermore, the club hierarchy spent the summer selling several of Bilic’s players out from under him, notably Ahmed Hegazi.
Actually, West Brom have improved in recent weeks. They played well and were beaten only narrowly by Newcastle and Man United, and just secured their best result of the season in holding Manchester City to a 1-1 draw.
Watching on their tellies from somewhere in China though, the club’s owners are seemingly not bothered by such considerations as performance levels and reasonable expectations. They want a miracle and they want it now, and so they have sacked Slaven Bilic. His replacement is tactical revolutionary Sam Allardyce, who is not a tactical revolutionary. Rather, he is a long-ball merchant whose teams tend to be about as enjoyable to watch as drying paint, but without any of the sense of satisfaction when it’s over.
Big Sam has also never been relegated from the Premier League. Good luck keeping that record up with this lot.
The other point I want to make about this rather odd sacking is how it feeds into modern football’s sacking culture. There is no doubt in my mind that if West Brom had missed out on promotion last season and were still chugging along happily around the top end of the Championship then Slaven Bilic would still be in a job. Instead, he’s paying the price for his success.
This is because such is the gulf between the Premier League and lower tiers, without major investment promotion = struggle.
And struggle = sacking.
As anyone who finished high school should be able to tell you, that can be simplified to:
Promotion = Sacking.
In other words, sacking Slaven Bilic is not only probably pointless; it says to other managers: don’t bother getting promoted, it isn’t worth it.
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