Premier League veteran Neil Clement is confident Albion have nothing to fear when they embark on another crack at establishing the club in the top flight.
The club’s longest-serving player, fresh from his triumphant return to duty in the closing stages of the Championship title campaign, is a veteran of the club’s three previous top-flight campaigns.
After one Great Escape and two relegations, the Baggies will make another attempt at stabilising themselves as a Premier force just after the relegations of promoted duo Birmingham and Derby and the collapse of Reading’s one-season wonder.
That adds weight to the theory that the Championship clubs face a more daunting task than ever to stay at the top, but Clement says: “There is nothing to fear, not now we’ve got the players we have.
“The manager is
“I think I have proved over the years that I can do that. The nucleus is there, but it’s only right that some more good players should come along.
“I think it’s exciting and I’m looking forward to it. New players coming through the door only raise everyone else’s standards.
“The football we played in the first year we went up didn’t help and neither did the formation we played.
“I was a centre-half playing at left wing-back against Beckham and Gary Neville. Looking back at that it just wasn’t right for me and the football we played just wasn’t right for us and didn’t suit the Premier League.
“I think next year we will be ready for it.”
He added: “If you make a mistake in the Premier League a team will definitely punish you. If you give the ball away in the wrong situation to Steven Gerrard you know he will pick out Torres and it’s a goal.
“Everyone needs to raise their standards.”
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16 Comments
Time will tell,history suggests you weren’t good enough and you aint getting any younger. I’m assuming you are refering to Megsons tactics? Blame Megson all you like but you have a lot to thank him for, you wouldn’t be in this postion if it wasn’t for Megson laying the foundations in the first place.
I agree Wolf - any Albion fan that doesn’t hold Megson in the highest regard has a very short memory IMO . Without him we would have gone down to league 1 to then to follow with a playoff and 2 promotions was unbelievable . Whilst i rate Mowbray as a better manager without Gary we wouldn’t be where we are to day and so have alot to thank Mr Megson for ! I’m sure the reception he will get when he comes to the Hawthorns will be fantastic. After the villa game Bolton will be the next one i look for once the fixtures come out . Good luck to wolves and blues next season!
And without Giles we would never have got into the old first division, and without BFR we would not have got into Europe….. ect ect..
Meggo has his place in our history - but he DID cost us our prem place by playing negative football and by upsetting everyone at the club with his poor attitude.
TM works WITH people - thats the way to get results… we are a different club to previous promotions.
WOLF - history also tells us that Clem has been promoted twice (three times now) - I don’t think we can blame him for us getting relegated.
His place is going to be under threat and he is most likely the most solid defender that Albion have got. It’s irrelevant the style of football played in the Championship, you are going to be up against teams that play an even better passing game with far better players.
I would suggest that Albion, Wolves, Villa and Blues need to be scouring the market now and show the money. The West Midlands is not the easiest place to attract big names.
Nothing to fear at all….only the likes of Rooney,Ronaldo,Torres.Addebayor.Bet they’ve never heard of Clem.
They will have heard of West brom though, as we beat arsenal and man u last time we were in the prem.
Wolves who?
I don’t think Neil will cut it in the top flight, he has not got the fine footballing brain that the rest of the squad has. It showed with his poor passing and lack of forward thinking. It will cost us in the prem.
6) We beat Man Utd at home and should have beat them away, if Camara had not missed a hatful and drew with Liverpool.
Anyway they all know who the famous Wolves are….. history, honours and support!
5. absolute plank comment!
and the likes of Terry, Carvalho, Cole, Lescott, Woodgate don’t fear marking Rooney and Ronaldo???? They are world class and it’s a great test of any player in the Premiership
And as for Clement v Rooney/ Torres etc……that’s not where Premiership survival is won or lost….anything picked up against the top 4 is a bonus….it’s all about the results against, Fulham, Sunderland, Wigan, Stoke, Boro, Bolton etc etc
Or in Wolves case Forest, Swansea, Blackpool, Sheff Wed, Coventry and Southampton
7. Without Clemo, we wouldnt have gone up full stop, lets bring back Cesar who treads on the ball and falls over whenever it goes near him, or Albrechtsen who tries his hardest to pass it to an opposite team player everytime he gets it! Clems got the pace and strength in the air that weve been lacking for all season, obviously not been a baggie for long Malcom Cake, cus when we were last in the prem, clemo was our best player all season by a mile!
Happy.
Not very often we disagree but I think on this old chestnut we always will. BFR took us backwards not forwards. Most over rated manager we’ve ever had. You follow the populist line of decrying Gary Megson. Gary Megson didn’t take us down with negative tactics, he took us up with negative tactics from an over performing set of players. He was then starved of funds on going up, not the boards fault, the money wasn’t there. Gary did his best with a set of decent championship players but to have expected us to attack quality premier teams is to ignore the facts. As for his inability to get on with the players, perhaps he could have been more tactful but would you really have had him pandering to Koumas, the Rumanian who’s name escapes me and a number of other wayward prima donnas at the time?
7 Baggyboy.
Sorry to lecture but do we really have to attack one of our players to praise another. Let’s back them all or we might end up calling for Freddy.
PS. Just saw a 2 second splash on the Midlands news that TM has won manager of the year. No doubt they Had only prepared a major feature on Tony Pulis winning it.
Has anyone seen Malcolm Cake and FranktheGas in the room at the same time? We should be told.
The Real Bully : Cosmin Contra. Now playing in La Liga scoring twice in the Uefa cup 1/4 final against Bayern Munich. Class act, but your proberly right…primadonna.
No.11 Real Bully, that’s one of the best posts, if not THE best, I’ve read on here. I like Happy’s posts too normally but this one I agree with you 100% Getting the best out of OUR players is up to the gaffer and none of us could do what he does so well. Now to cap it all, Dean Kiely has been called up for the Irish squad at, er, what age?? BFR or Fat Hatpins as I call him, but he’s rich and I ain’t, so you can fool most of the people all of the time. Giles, a good player-manager, but a manager alone? NO! Meggo? Essential to us at the time. Well organised, no nonsense, arrogant, successful with next-to-nothing, but oh so BORING! Now TM…I shall never blame Jeremy Peace for anything he does because he brought us a HERO. A human being, but a hero nontheless. Hell, I’ve just remembered the noisy sod on the PA system with his distorted, overloaded, 130deciBel, so-called, crappy music! Jeremy, sort him out!
Cosmin Contra - labelled the best right back on the planet when he came to us….. departed as the third best right back in west bromwich !!!
TRB - I actually agree with large parts of what you say about BFR - but all I can say is that this is the best football i have watched SINCE BFR.
I’m not having a go at Megson at all - that season with 27 clean sheets was a blue print for getting promotion - but he did take us down through a combination of poor tactics and dressing room disharmony (taxi for megson ??)
The only point I was trying to make is that IMO ToMo is the best manager at the Albion in my lifetime - even Giles was limited.
Happy.
Don’t know if you will pick this up so late and I don’t want to go on but given the players at his disposal what tactics should GM have employed that wouldn’t have had us relegated by Christmas. Wholeheartedly agree about TM, he is something special. Yes TM may handle players better but in my book any manager that calls an overpaid, lazy, big headed prima donna a spade will always be a hero in my book.
Cyril.
Jimmy Hagan was the manager when I started going up. No doubt you go back a bit further. My top 3 excluding TM would be 1Megson 2Hagan 3 Giles. What’s yours.