Ramsay Time
New Baggies boss makes first appearance in The Hawthorns dugout.
A few days ago, it was Eric WHO? Less than a week later, and before a ball has been kicked, the new Baggies Head Coach is being hailed as a cross between peak Mourinho and prime time Guardiola.
I’m exaggerating, of course, but if nothing else, the initial commentary around Eric Ramsay’s appointment illustrates the myopia of English football - or at least of many supporters.
When Ryan Mason was sacked, social media was full of predictable predictions about his successor. Michael Carrick was one - not good enough for some in the Baggies fanbase, but still worthy of the interim manager’s role at Manchester United. Others called for Neil Warnock, a brilliant football manager of a certain type, but seriously, after the Battle of Bramall Lane?? You’d have just felt dirty.
Ramsay it is, then, taking to The Hawthorns dugout for the first time against Middlesbrough tonight, surfing a wave of goodwill after supporters started digging into his past. US-based Baggie Bard Andy Caulton revealed details of an ambitious go-getter who was ‘born to coach’, while You Tuber Jacob Ward dived deep into the Boss’s tactics at his previous club Minnesota United and suggested how they might be applied in the Black Country.
My key takeaway from Jacob’s analysis was that Ramsay, “is not a plug and play manager…a large part of his approach is giving the players that he has the best chance of winning”.
He’s a pragmatist, in other words, and tries to make the most of the resources at his disposal. Which is as it should be.
All in all, there are plenty of grounds for optimism - albeit with a couple of caveats.
The first is that over time, stats show that once the ‘new manager bounce’ has dissipated - and even that can’t be guaranteed - clubs generally revert to the mean. If you are funded to be mid-table Championship club, you’ll generally end up mid-table in the Championship.
Then there are the specifics of the players Ramsay has as his disposal. Albion certainly shouldn’t be as low as 18th in the table; but neither is the squad good enough to break into the top half dozen places, even in this mediocre Championship season. Carlos Corberan pulled off an amazing turnaround in 20222-23, transforming Steve Bruce’s relegation-bound team into unlikely play-off contenders, but Ramsay’s overall inheritance is weaker and shallower. Getting halfway and above by May will represent progress.
That said, he can certainly start laying down a meaningful pattern on the training ground over the next few months and Albion will go into the summer transfer window in a much better place financially after the PSR trauma of the last few seasons, setting the scene for a promotion assault in 2026-27.
In the meantime, we’ll also hopefully witness the breakthrough of promising young players whose progress was blocked by Mason - most obviously Ollie Bostock and Harry Whitwell - along with the return from injury of Alex Williams, an exciting prospect at right back.
Our league position also means that we can afford to go full throttle at the FA Cup - a competition where the financial rewards of reaching the later stages are now much more meaningful, in the absence of parachute payments.
All this assumes, of course, that we won’t be dragged any further into the mire at the bottom of the table or even, perish the thought, suffer relegation. It’s certainly possible, but the wave of feelgood washing over The Hawthorns right now demands nothing less than the utmost positivity. If you’re going to the game, bring your voice and let Eric know we’re all behind him.
Come on you Baggies!