Albion have thrown in the towel on survival – Megson
GARY Megson has accused West Bromwich Albion of giving up on the fight for survival far too early.
Megson, remembered by supporters for his achievements in the early 2000s, returned to the club last summer to replace Dave Kemp as Tony Pulis’ assistant.
He then took up the reins as caretaker manager after Pulis was sacked in November, and before Alan Pardew was appointed. His brief tenure yielded credible draws with Tottenham and Newcastle.
Since then, there’s been precious little for fans to shout about with the Baggies sliding to the foot of the Premier League table under Pardew.
Just one win in 17 Premier League games has cut Albion ten points adrift of safety with only seven games left.
“It does (pain me),” Megson said. “It (relegation) probably is inevitable now, but it wasn’t inevitable three or four games ago and yet they were talking like that, they’re sending out all the signals and I think it’s really poor.
“Every signal is, ‘we’re down and we’ll try and sort it out for next season’, and it’s not as easy as that.
“You’re not down until you can’t get the amount of points.
“Sometimes you just get a catalyst, you win one game and another game goes in your favour and all of a sudden everything changes a little bit.”
Megson was contacted by Pardew after the Londoner took on the job. The former Crystal Palace manager thanked Megson for steadying the ship – though he did admit to one regret!
“Alan actually rang me up, which was strange – I don’t mean ‘strange’, because he’s all right, but Alan rang me up and he says ‘I’m just ringing you up to thank you for what you’ve done in the last ten/11 days, but you’ve stolen my thunder a little bit.
“Usually when you go in as a new manager, you’re picking it up from something that’s gone on and you can give it that lift – but the lift had already started.”
There is plenty of speculation surrounding the future of Pardew this summer, with the board unlikely to keep him on.
Derek McInnes, Graham Potter, Dean Smith, Michael Appleton and Nigel Pearson have all been mentioned as potential candidates to lead just Albion in their assault on the Championship.
Megson isn’t sure what the club will do and believes the media have only reported on coaches with Hawthorns connections.
“I think they will try and link people with an affiliation to West Brom,” he added. “Michael I know very well, I signed him down there, he offered me a job at Oxford and in the end he’s gone to Leicester as assistant.
“I think people have put two and two together.
“But at the moment I’m not sure what they’ll do.”