Albion boss Tony Mowbray admits he can’t wait to step into the unknown after saying good riddance to Championship football.
Mowbray admits he won’t miss the grind of second tier football which is providing added motivation to his over-riding ambition to establish Albion as a top-flight club.
This is Albion’s third promotion to the Premiership but each campaign has been a struggle for survival they won only once.
Mowbray wants to change all that saying: “One of the biggest things for me in this promotion is that we’re not going back into the Championship to play these teams again. They are new venues, new stadiums, new managers, new tactics, new players and new challenges and the freshness of it is good for the players and the team.
“There are some big clubs in the Championship but I’m sure they are all envious of where we’re going, what we’re going to do and the challenge ahead of us.
“We’ve got to try to grasp that opportunity and relish the challenge and try to make sure we stay in the Premier League for the foreseeable future.
“That’s got to be the challenge to try to cement ourselves as a Premier League club and lose this tag of a club which has been up and down three times in six years.”
Although four friendlies have now been pencilled in against lower division opposition, Mowbray is still finalising plans for the club’s pre-season programme. But the planning time he will now get for the Premier’s lighter game schedule, he believes, will be another key factor in Albion’s progress.
He added: “Every game is going to be huge for us next year. Every game in the Premier League is like a major event. The good thing is that you’re not inundated with midweek fixtures and chasing to get prepared.
“I’m looking forward to having the proper preparation time to get the team right for whichever opposition is coming along.”
31 Comments
I will miss the Wolves though.
All those points each season are a big help to us !
I’ll miss the Albion as well and the visits to Sandwell on a Sunday morning.
I will miss the derby with Wolves, the Villa derby is just not the same for me. I also miss the amount of games, especially midweek night games. Lets face it in the Prem we could be playing at any time, 12midday kick offs on a Sunday are the worst in my opinion.
I would say that we’ll see you the season after next, but you’ll be back in the Championship and we’ll be the ones laughing at Sandwell Town from the Premier League!
Getting relegated the Mowbray way
Well said Steve.
On a different note i watched our best piece of transfer activity last night……….Selling Ellington
I watched our best bit of transfer activity this year last night………Ellington playing for Watford!!!!!!
#1
We’ve got 12 though from Stoke and either Bristol or Hull!
Add that to the 6 each from Fulham and Wigan and we’re well on the way to staying up!
I agree Steve, however I’m sure we can get some new whipping boys
While you lot are mickey-taking, hasn’t any one noticed our gaffer’s “We”, “We’re”, “Our” and “Us” in his thoughts? It will be tough but there’s no one I’d rather have to lead us into this battle than General Mowbray.
(3)
I agree. The Championship is not the same without the Black Country Derby.
It’s always the first dates I look for when the fixtures are published. I’m sure a lot of the baggie fans are the same.
7
so thats 24 points in the bag then, cant see you getting much more tho. maybe a few draws.
at least you wont be short of seeing goals again at the poorthorns just at the wrong end. is owen still top scorer of prem goals at the poorthorns. ronaldo v fatty, this ive got to see, he cant just kick em out the way in that league.
3 Bonber.
This is probably due to your age although home area may come into it. Being from Smethwick and starting to go up in 61, it never occured to me to hate anyone but the Villa as Blues and Wolves rarely posed much in the way of a threat. I’d like to reassure you that Villa have just as many obnoxious fans as our late lamented rivals. You’ll soon get the hang of detesting them. I’m sure fellow wrinklies like Cyril will back me up on this one.
TRB - I also grew up knowing the villa as our main rivals, although I’m not from the Black country.. and I can’t wait to renew that aquaintance (they don’t throw bodily fluids over you either)…
I’ve said before, I’m so glad to be out of this league this year cos its just gonna get harder and harder, with more money, decent managers, and a much more difficult fixture list.
Our style of play and the type of players we have are geared up to the premier league, and if we finish one goal above the relegation zone next year then fair enough - but i think we will do MUCH better than that.
Last season showed just how tight the Championship is so I’m with ToMo - good riddance to it !!
When are Wolves fans gonna get the fact that calling us “Sandwell Town” does not bother us?Same as calling us “Tesco”.It just isnt an insult.Please come up with more insulting names,DINGLES.:)
PREMIER LEAGUE.
11 - is Super kev still top rival scorer at the Custard bowl ??
We may lose to Man Utd, we may lose to Arsenal, we may lose to chelsea…. but whist we do you will be losing to Burnley and watford and palace (and swansea and southampton and Forest).
Honestly - can you really be that thick that you think you can upset us ?
Do you really think there is a baggy fan here who would swap places with you ?
Not only are you gonna lose to a bunch of mediocre teams - you are gonna do it with a poor team playing negative football surrounded by the worst set of fans in the country.
Lucky old you !
2. Obviously any excuse to get out of cheslyn hay!
Just watched MM in a beer advert.
He’s got no future in acting either!
Ken - he was that wooden I thought someone had thrown a chair on….
cant wait for the vile game,,lets get back to the proper derby game vile v wba. its got boring playing the little dingles each season,we always beat them easy so it aint fun no more,,,PLAYING IN THE PREM THE MOWBRAY WAY,,,IN STYLE OF COURSE,,OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YES.
Every games massive. Like Wigan,Stoke,Fulham,Bristol City or Hull.All big clubs compared to Albion.
In the 60s and 70s villa where always the local team we hated not the dingles. It only changed when we both dropped into the lower league,now we are in the premiership it will be the villa all the baggies fan will turn there banter to, and the dingles will be forgotten until they can get to the promised land which is the premiership
Whilst I applaud your promotion to the premiership I find your arrogance somewhat distasteful. Ask any Villa fan and they will not see West Bromwich Albion as their natural rivals.
Yeah, the wolves insults are getting a little boring now. I came on last week and said this but the jokes are still the same!!
Your going down YAWN - we’ll get a season in the prem plus £60m, what a shame we’d much rather be in the Championship playing Swansea and Derby - NOT!!
Gera and Phillips are going YAWN - If they do they do, but these two were supposed to be leaving last year aswell.
You didn’t have a civic reception YAWN - couldn’t care less!
Hurst is leaving YAWN - He’s only 16 and we stand to make a lot of money out of him if he does make it at Pompey, if not then we haven’t lost anything.
My clubs bigger than your club - YAWN Open to debate, but don’t care anyway!
I hear that Mad Mick thinks you are going up next year, bless his cotton socks!
Despite thinking we are cannon fodder next year, wouldn’t you just like to swap with us.
15. upset you lot.
easy we only have to say hello and you lot throw your rattles out of your prams.
14.its called banter you dimwit.
oh it’s so funny to read the pathetic whines and excuses of the wolves, stuck rightly again in the championship, with nothing to look forward to, but another season of mediocrity, trying to wind us up, and pretend they would rather be where they are and not having achieved promotion as the universally acclaimed football playing champions that we are!!
Good luck to you guys, rather than saying we will see you next year in the chapionship when you come back down i would love it if we were both up in the prem. See you in the prem one day.
it’s alright you dingles calling us tesco bags but come on it’s better than NETTO bags lmao
Well in the early 1980’s I remember our biggest rivals were Villa. It would be around 82 when Wolves started the freefall, but they beat us at the Hawthorns even though they got relegated.
Yes you do miss a derby game and I think I would prefer to play Wolves than Villa, so many easy points you see. Loved the There’s only one Keith Curle chants from the Wolves fans and 5 minutes later he scored an own goal. Then the Baggies fans chanted the same back. Oh the memories. Great it will be a few years before we meet the Wolves in the league again.
Oh Real Bully, how could you? “I’m sure fellow wrinklies like Cyril will back me up on this one”.
here am I still fighting off the ladies, (even Terry won’t show his girl to me). Did I read that Terry’s Mom is ill? Best of luck there mate if it’s so. Couple of points to add. My first Villa encounter was 1944 and they stuffed us 5-1 at The Hawthorns after we’d scored first in the 3rd minute. They had a superb side then though, mostly old men who could still play more than a bit but hadn’t gone in the Forces. Also RB, you started in 1961 so you must remember the Boxing Day 1962 when The Wulfies were winning 2-0 at half time and it was cancelled because of a snow storm. Then the replay…we got stuffed 7-0. Just after that Derek Kevan went to Chelsea and we had to rebuild with Jimmy Hagan. A great job he did too until he lost the dressing room.
# optimistic wolf said: May 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Every games massive. Like Wigan,Stoke,Fulham,Bristol City or Hull.All big clubs compared to Albion.
How do they have the nerve????
Dingles you’re BIGGEST game will be Blues followed bt forest, Derby..
And yes every game in the prem IS massive.. it’s the BEST league in the world pal.. not seria A or la liga… THE PREMIERSHIP…
29 Cyril.
Don’t panic. Like me wear your wrinkles with pride. Getting older makes things much easier with women, they feel sorry for us and don’t walk away so much. Can’t say I remember the Wolves game. My dad was a recently lapsed supporter when I decided I wanted to start going and was pressganged into taking me. The amount of snow required to stop a game in those days would definitely have provided excuse enough for him to cry off. I remember the Boxing Day game with Spurs that finished 4-4 with I believe Don Howe missing a late penalty to win the game. Unfortunately I missed this one as well, after my Dad’s last few pints in the pub meant that the gates were locked when we got there. Happy days
PS I think it was 2 bob for adults when I first went, For Bomber and the other young guns that’s 10 pence, 5 pence for kids. What did it cost in 1944?