West Brom sacked Valérien Ismaël almost three weeks ago, after appointing him as manager at the start of the season.
The Baggies currently sit 11th in the Championship, an extremely worrying position given that they were a Premier League side not even a year ago. Their former manager was fired and replaced with Championship veteran Steve Bruce, following the club’s worse run of form throughout the current campaign.
It looked as though Ismaël was going to have West Brom challenging at the beginning of the season, especially with new signing Alex Mowatt putting in several stellar performances. After his incredible work at Barnsley, it seemed the Frenchman was the perfect fit at the Hawthorns.
However, the atmosphere began to grow toxic within the fanbase, and it became almost inevitable that Ismaël was going to have to leave.
But how did his side’s stats compare to those of his predecessors?
The 46-year-old became the Baggies’ 14th manager in the last decade when he was appointed, taking over from Sam Allardyce who had been at the club for just five months.
In his short tenure in the West Midlands, Ismaël recorded a win percentage of 38.71%, the second lowest of the last five managers (only Allardyce was lower). This becomes increasingly concerning when taking into account three of the others managed somewhat at top tier level.
Allardyce registered a 15.4% win rate, Slaven Bilić with 40%, James Shan with 58.33% and Darren Moore with 47.92%.
Defensively, Ismaël’s Baggies side was certainly more solid than during previous Championship regimes – West Brom have conceded 30 goals n the league so far this season, with only the top two sides having conceded less.
Under Bilić, West Brom let 45 goals in throughout their promotion-winning campaign, and they conceded 62 the season before. Ismaël’s side was on target to beat both of these records.
Offensively, however, 17 teams have scored more goals this season than West Brom, an angle to this team which seriously frustrates the fanbase. In their previous two Championship campaigns, the Birmingham-based side have registered the second best attack in the league, scoring 87 and 77 goals respectively.
Ismaël was given pre-season and a squad he wanted to assemble, something previous Baggies managers have not been granted with. Unfortunately for the former Barnsley man, he could not get his team playing to an acceptable standard for the club. It will be intriguing to see where his next job sends him, especially if it is within the second tier.
