Roberto Di Matteo

Albion are already looking at potential successors to Roberto Di Matteo, sporting director Dan Ashworth has revealed.

Ashworth says the Baggies are constantly monitoring potential managers of the future after revealing they kept tabs on Di Matteo throughout last season while he was boss of League One side MK Dons.

Di Matteo was eventually chosen as successor to Tony Mowbray this summer and Ashworth has admitted the Italian was tracked throughout last season as part of an ongoing ‘watching brief’ of promising managers. “It’s a process that we monitor constantly because you’d be daft not to,” said Ashworth.

“When I first took on this role the chairman made it clear one of my roles would be to help find the next head coach, whether it be because Tony moved on, results were poor, or whatever.

“The average ‘lifespan’ of a manager or head coach is 13 months, which is frightening, so if you’re not prepared for the possibility of change you’re not really taking your responsibility seriously.

“So all through last season I identified and tracked some potential candidates and did reports on them, similarly to the way in which we do player reports.

“We looked at how their teams set up, their results, whether their style of play was conducive to the players we’ve got and the way our supporters expect us to play.

“Once we knew Tony was going we were well ahead of the game. We had a list that we had been tracking for many months and Roberto was among those names.”

Ashworth believes long-term planning is also key to the Baggies’ player recruitment plans, and the director has pointed to Chile international Gonzalo Jara as a prime example.

“After we won the Championship 18 months ago, that summer we didn’t really have enough player research,” he said.

“But that June Tony Spearing, our head of European scouting, had seen Gonzalo Jara at the Toulan tournament, playing for Chile under-23s.

“We tracked him for a year and had three or four different people watch him. We needed a player that could play in a number of different positions.”