THE DONE SHOW
Pardew’s miserable 96-day reign has been a disaster but their players have to take their share of blame for the shambles says Albion defender Brunt
WATFORD 1 Deeney 77 WEST BROM 0 ALAN PARDEW survived his own requiem, but all the classic symptoms were there to define the end of an error.
Even when they played quite well, West Brom lost.
When Pardew was serenaded by Watford fans with the chorus of the damned, You’re Getting Sacked In The Morning, 2,000 loyal emissaries from the Black Country joined in.
And when Salomon Rondon was offered a glorious chance to dig the escape tunnel with a free header seven yards out, he came armed with a teaspoon instead of a shovel.
Relegation is not an accident waiting to happen for West Brom – it was signposted when they appointed Pardew.
After seven wins in his last 53 Premier League games as a manager, he’s put the ‘mess’ into messiah and the ‘ego’ into woebegone.
From the St Trinian’s discipline of senior players breaking curfew and allegedly nicking a taxi on last month’s ill-fated club trip to Barcelona, to Chris Brunt’s dressing-room outburst after a pathetic defeat to Huddersfield, Pardew’s spell has not just been unruly.
The Baggies, watched by celebrity fan Adrian Chiles (left) have gone from boingboing to bye-bye.
If there was an obvious, oven-ready alternative to Pardew, he would have been toast already. When an electronic advertising board started billowing smoke at Vicarage Road, it was the first time Albion’s season caught fire on his watch.
The fire brigade piled in with extinguishers, but Pardew can only dream of Pugh,
Pugh, Barney Mcgrew, Cuthbert,
Dibble and
Grubb’s coordinated teamwork from the parish of Trumpton instead of crucial lapses on the pitch.
If the Baggies were circling the plughole under his predecessor Tony Pulis – never revered for his tactics, but never relegated – they are disappearing down the gurgler now.
Midfielder Brunt (above, with Salomon Rondon) may have been the spokesman for insurrection a week earlier, but as Albion passed the point of no return at least his assessment was searingly honest.
He said: “It falls on the manager’s head when things go wrong, but as a player after a game you go and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’ve done enough.
“For a lot of the season, the majority of us have been looking at each other and we’re saying we haven’t played well enough. As a team, you have to share the responsibility equally.
“I don’t think anybody could point fingers after this game. It was a lot better than the last few weeks, but when you’re down there, things don’t go your way.
“You hear a lot about great escapes because of what’s happened before, and you can’t give up. It’s been a long, hard season for everybody. We’ve been in the Premier League so long so it hurts to be where we are.
“But we haven’t played well enough to get the points. With nine games to go you can’t chuck the towel in. If we could win a couple, you never know if other results fall for us.
“It’s been a pretty turbulent couple of months. I don’t think we’ve got a massive amount of confidence. Results breed confidence and we haven’t had many this year.”
Watford head coach Javi Gracia has taken 10 points from his first five games where predecessor Marco Silva took just 11 from his last 16 matches.
The Hornets are all but safe after Troy Deeney’s expertly-taken winner 13 minutes from time.
But for Albion, and their melodic refrain The Lord’s My Shepherd from Psalm 23, it’s goodnight from hymn.