Corberan has sympathy for angry crowd

CARLOS Corberan sympathised with the Albion fanbase as protests took place at The Hawthorns following the victory over Reading.

Supporters gathered in their hundreds outside the directors’ entrance in Halford’s Lane aiming chants at controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai who has failed to return the £5 million he owes the club, despite the second deadline – the first one being in September 2021 – on New Year’s Eve passing without repayment.

It comes at a time when the club have confirmed they have taken out a £20m loan just to pay the bills. Supporters have had enough and, through the Action For Albion movement, have begun to make their feelings known by sending a clear message to the absent chairman.

Corberan, meanwhile, is without the £5m he and head of recruitment Ian Pearce were expecting to be able to work with in the transfer window. He has supported the fans’ rights to protest peacefully and show their anger at how matters have been handled at the very top of the club, but he is of the belief his plans for January haven’t been altered too much by the development.

“I don’t have the money to put in this money so it’s nothing I can control,” said the head coach. “The thing I can control is to keep working the team to make our fans feel proud when they are watching the team – this is everything I can do.

“From my point of view, from when I arrived here nothing has changed in terms of the possibility we have for this market. For me, the plans are the same, everything is the same, I understand the frustration of the fans and I respect everything they want to do, but my work and the focus of the players is to give to them the happiness after winning.

“Sometimes it’s not easy to improve the level of the team, you need to be very specific in which players that can help you. Of course, the club has possibilities and we need to respect the possibilities, they didn’t change from when I arrived here .”