'Out of Control'. Feb 2026.

‘I was of the feeling it was out of control

I had the opinion it was out of control’        Bono. 1979.

We’ve all been in situations where control is compromised..

And often you are in the middle of it, realizing what is going on, but immune from activating the change needed..

I was a teacher for 35 years, and still look back to some of my early days and grimace..

You are there, but you are not there..

Looking back, it can be down to bad appointments, lack of planning, or letting the inmates run the asylum as they say…

Or, as ever in life, a mixture of all three…

As a Baggies fan, watching the freefall unveil its ugly but seemingly inevitable head, it seems the one quality we have in such short supply is control..

Whenever have I seen a West Brom team of recent vintage, control a game, let alone dictate the narrative?

Rather than arrest a decline, it’s got simply worse and worse…

Decline is of course multi layered and is seemingly accelerated through mismanagement and myopic planning..

Look at The Championship now and the teams in absolute freefall?

There are four.

Four proud, provincial teams with storied histories, connected through recent tawdry, times, poor ownership and direction based on throwing darts at issues rather than throwing light on the clarity of vision, seems to have united us.

But there is not one united in this seemingly doomed quartet of decline..

There’s a Wednesday, a Rovers, a City and an Albion…

That’s where we are…

And the lifeline for us, of one team's points deduction with a strong possibility of another, seems to be our most possible route to survival!

Control is a quality you need off and on the pitch, a unity of purpose and a unity of vision..

In recent times, it was there, under the baton of the ‘not so fat’ controller himself, Carlos Corberan..

With Carlos, the first impression of the banishment of a static sideline presence to the whirling dervish of  manic movement, seemed at the time, exactly what we needed.

The Albion’s Media team were very smart to display and publish visuals of classic Corbearnisms in his first training session..

But this wasn’t an impression…

This was a necessity..

Corberan never betrayed this manner of involved, controlled management and you wonder why?

The evidence, post Corberan is damning..

Being a caretaker manager at Xmas, with such little time to impact or prepare, was a tough ask for Chris Brunt, but away to a struggling Derby team [regardless of The Rams seemingly being an unbeatable nemesis, I think all of us fans, fancied a win that day?].

The prize was a position in a playoff spot..

Of course, we all know, the Albion laid a proverbial Boxing Day egg, never looking like winning, but look at the prize and the subsequent timeline..

13 months and one week…

Verge of the Playoffs…

Now in a relegation spot..

A drop off of fifteen places, in a division that is arguably weaker than it has been since we were relegated from The Premier League 1,727 days ago..

Of course, with financial issues abounding and a tightrope of FFP rules needed astriding and when you sell your best and fill the gaps with less, it was always going to be a tricky season..

But the rebuilding was clearly stymied in a lack of balance.

One striker signed to supplement one long term and seemingly weakened player in Maja and another who is consistently overlooked in Dike.

A series of centre halves, with a couple of caveats.

They MUST all be right footed, and lack pace..

No need for a specialist full back.

Injuries of course have not helped.

Toby Collyer would have been the ideal signing to add much needed quality to midfield, but of course plagued by various ailments, his twelve games, a flirtation of his qualities that lasted just over four hours of first team action resulting in a recall to Man Utd and now on loan again, with the promotion chasing Tigers of Hull.

Ryan Mason’s reign was looking back, pretty similar to his demeanour, uninspired, but seemingly set for a future in the lower echelons of The Championship..

At least for this year.

Mason’s team had a modicum of organization, hamstrung by signings that on the whole lacked balance and underachieved, but there was a structure that seemed to work for home matches, his foibles being an away streak that showed no sign of being addressed.

The football at times, particularly with Mikey Johnston marauding down the right side and supplying a rampant and unleashed Aune Heggebo in his hot spell of six goals in rapid succession, created a sense of hope.

Good players, playing in their correct positions..

Go figure?

Of course, Mason made errors, his reading of the game and use of the bench was tepid and ineffective, but we were mostly never out of control, and certainly competitive in games..

Here’s where the dislocation looks to have taken place, Andrew Nestor feeding his vision of football with a mixed bag of signings, some huge successes, others absolute bombs, [we all know the names]..

But there seemed to be a plan, and we were mostly competitive..

It’s funny how the grass being greener can apply in any situation, and the Mason days, taken in isolation, look like a mirage of hope with what has gone on in recent weeks..

The fact Nestor was nowhere to be seen on the unveiling of our new boss, Eric Ramsay, was maybe just a coincidence?

But you never know in football?

Ramsay has a good reputation in the MLS, and is the latest incarnate to try and break through the managerial threshold of success, a pathway too far this season, for another coach viewed as a forward thinking coach in the US, Wilfried Nancy.

On the playing side, the pathway to respect and acceptance wasn’t easy originally for American soccer players, back in the very early 1990’s, and as I’m good friends with many of them, I clearly know how tough a journey that was.

Of course, those days are long gone and for Eric Ramsay the earliest in game impressions were to be so vital in acceptance from the home base of fans already in the earliest sense of panic to the netherland of a place we probably never thought we’d see The Albion competing in?

The third tier of English football..

At Minnesota Utd, Ramsay took over a struggling team from Adrian Heath and turned things around fairly quickly.

One of my MLS contacts stated Ramsay initially was actually over committing in attack with his early formations, before pragmatism took root, and playing without a majority of the possession, relying on high tempo breakaways and effective set pieces, was his philosophy.

And of course, the much debated three defenders and two wing backs…

To implement this system at The Albion you are firstly radically changing a playing system as well as, I imagine, assuming you have the type of players to implement that system of play..

It definitely takes a certain type of player to thrive in a back three, and indeed we had the archetypal example of that type last year in Torbjorn Heggem..

Very athletic.

Pacy.

Comfortable on the ball.

Reads the game well.

Consistent in possession..

And left footed..

Again imagine that?

Life mirrors defensive recruitment.

Balance is everything in life.

Planning a balanced defensive unit is simply adhering to that tried and trusted principle.

The only Albion central defenders who may be comfortable in that role are Krystian Bielik and George Campbell, and we saw seeds of how this might work against Derby County, in one of the only mildly convincing spells of Ramsay’s reign so far.

But injuries to those two, and Ramsay STILL deploying the same system, honestly stunned me.

Stability is everything, and we simply opted out.

We opted for out of control..

Add in a young wing back who I imagine barely knew his team mates, with a left wing back who is now heading to Pisa, and a goalkeeper whose one training session was enough to trust him with the gloves for his debut, and as many Bristol City fans warned a clanger at a crossed ball waiting to happen.

It’s a defensive unit, set up in a system of failure, in an archetypal six pointer.

Those games that shift momentum one way or another..

After two minutes, you could clearly see Pompey had planned a simple route to navigate our defence, pop a pass in the hole vacated by an attacking wing back and see if our trio of experienced but moribund defenders could actually deal with it.

Could they?

A resounding no.

Whether being pulled apart by runners, or players hurtling into space, or attackers being dragged back by retreating wing backs gaining yellow cards and surrendering dangerous set piece situations.

We were simply torn apart.

Teams can easily plan to play against you if they KNOW exactly what they are going to do, exploiting space and weaknesses that are clearly going to be there.

Add in, we can’t effectively chase a game, as to do that you need serial goal scorers, something we simply have not got, so setting an early platform and staying in games early is beyond vital.

In our last twelve games we have scored twelve goals.

We concede, chances are we are not going to win.

Added to that, the caveat of only securing three positive results when falling behind all season, it’s not too obvious to see how teams will want to take the game to us and dictate from there..

So the sense of lack of hope and trust in this team is real, one point from the last thirty six available away from home.

A net score of 27 goals to 9, NOT in our favour is obviously a pattern beyond set in stone.

The two worst performances of this dozen away days tour of doom, were probably the bookends, both 3-0 defeats to Millwall and obviously last week at Portsmouth.

Millwall was three months ago today [4th October].

Looking back, was that the day it was all revealed, that we didn’t have the physicality, athleticism and arguably the fight to compete at the higher end of this division?

And then you are only going one way..

So the start of February gives the Albion, its biggest test in decades, but on the flimsiest of foundations.

Does Eric Ramsay continue to adhere to his entrenched system that clearly is at odds with an underperforming and arguably demotivated group, or does he show the ‘flexibility’ he clearly stated he has a coaching tenet and adjust?

Before we are out of games, and the result has become a formality?

The reinforcements in the January window are inexpensive, seemingly throws of the dice, from a barely convincing goalkeeper from first impressions, Max O’Leary, a wing back who may have good attacking intentions, but really struggled defensively, [not helped by a one paced back three], Danny Imray and two new attackers.

The return from Aston Villa of our old academy product, Jamaldeen Jimoh-Alboa and Crystal Palace’s muscular teenage striker, Hindolo Mustapha..

Of the four, one is proven with experience, but proving to be hardly a step up from the confidence strewn Josh Griffiths, but will the other three prove to be what we need at this stage of the season?

The loan pool market for us, post Harvey Barnes, has been disastrous, let’s hope for better things here.

Looking at footage, Jimoh-Alboa looks pacy, direct, and is very highly rated by both Villa and more importantly our academy, his re-introduction video to the club he loved as a kid from Handsworth was touching and well intended, [on the theme of videos, seems the club/Isaac Price missed an important beat not to release some form of video to apologize for his staring and stand off with the away fans last week?

A simple but sincere message would have hopefully helped bridge a growing chasm between disgruntled fans and players, at the very least it would have helped in PR form.

Our final signing, Hindolo Mustapha has had the strangest of years, loaned to Bundesliga 2 club FC Nurnberg and sank without trace, not one appearance even off the bench.

FC Nurnberg are in mid-table of this division, scoring just over a goal per game, [23 goals in 20 games] and not once was Mustapha called upon to play?

Looking at footage from playing for Sierra Leone and U21 games at Palace, Mustapha is really what most 19 year old attacking players are.

Raw.

For sure muscular, a scorer of some flamboyant goals, but not one appearance in his career so far at first team level?

Ever.

It may work, it may not, but it’s a clear risk…

Considering the likes of Harry Whitwell and Ollie Bostock, the former in particular, impressive in the FA Cup at Swansea and in his occasional cameo league games, it must be beyond disappointing?

Hopefully the 4th Rd FA Cup tie v Norwich will give the aforementioned pair as well as returning from injury, Alex Williams another chance and platform to impress?

Above all this month, I want to see a team ‘in control’.

A team with a stable, workable plan that doesn’t cede advantage from the first minute.

A team with the passion for a fight and the athleticism to match an opponent.

A team, who we as fans, believe could not only compete, but win games..

A team in control…

Out of control simply means one thing.

Relegation.