Matt Maher: A confident start for Ryan Mason but the real test has not yet begun

Loser in two previous cup finals, first as a player and then as interim boss, victory over Manchester United felt the perfect way to finish his long seven-year apprenticeship as part of the club’s backroom team and strike out on his own.

"Bilbao was confirmation,” explained Mason, when asked which moment in particular had convinced him he was ready to take the step to become a head coach in his own right, having spent the past four seasons as assistant to Antonio Conte and then Ange Postecoglou.

"I knew after that, that my time had come to an end,” he continued. “To have the opportunity to work with Ange  - I'd only signed a two year contract and it was an incredible two years.

"For him to give me that opportunity meant we could live and grow as a team - I was so grateful.

"But as soon as we achieved that, it confirmed it was the right time. To close that chapter with what we achieved was great, it felt good to end the season that way.”

A new chapter has now begun with Albion. At his official unveiling on Wednesday, Mason said he had “no second thoughts and no doubts” about accepting the challenge of becoming the Baggies new head coach, following his first conversations with sporting director Andrew Nestor and owner Shilen Patel, which came just a few days after the glory in the Basque country.

Mason has only been in the job a month and working at the training ground for barely a week but already he claims to feel “a connection” with the club.

There was certainly plenty of talk about togetherness. Between them, Mason and Nestor, who sat alongside him at the top table in the Richardson Suite, used the word “alignment” no fewer than 16 times. Alignment in player recruiting, alignment in philosophy, it was all positive stuff.

But then it always is at this time of year. Every head coach is a genius in July. Mason knows the real test comes next month when the season begins, yet he retained an air of confidence even when told the brutal statistics for what one member of the media described as the “managerial killing field” better known as the Championship, in which Portsmouth’s John Mousinho is the longest-serving boss, having taken charge just 21 months ago.

“That’s not something I think about,” replied Mason, when asked just why he had decided to start his career as a No.1 in what is arguably football’s toughest division. 

“I believe in the people I'm working for. If you don't, then you're already having a difficult start, so that's irrelevant to me.

"I'm not thinking about the next five years, the relationship here feels good. It'll grow and develop."

At 34, Mason is the youngest Albion boss in more than a century and the second youngest in the Championship behind Southampton’s Will Still.

But as he quite rightly pointed out, the numbers don’t really tell the whole story.

In an ideal world, he would still be playing, yet the horrific injury which prematurely ended his career on the pitch and - without the quick thinking of Hull’s medical team and a bit of fortune - could have ended his life, sent him down a different path.

He’s young, yet he’s already done some hard yards, not least those two stints in interim charge at Tottenham, the first of which included the 2021 Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City.

“My last game was as a 25-year-old,” he said. “I’ve been coaching since I was 26 so it is a seven, eight-year apprenticeship which in normal circumstances is quite a long time – I’ve probably done hundreds of games with Tottenham in the Premier League and in European football, which is great – but the timing is the most important thing. 

“If I didn’t feel the timing was right and I didn’t feel absolutely ready and sure, then I would have waited. That’s not the case, I feel ready and most importantly I feel this football club is right. It is something that excites me.”

Albion certainly believe in him. Nestor, as he had done in last month’s interview with the club’s own media team, confirmed Mason had always been on ownership group Bilkul’s list of head coaching candidates.

Ideally, you suspect, they would like to have appointed him in January as Carlos Corberan’s direct successor, except the timing wasn’t right. 

The man they did appoint, Tony Mowbray, lasted less than 100 days yet Nestor spoke on Wednesday of this being a more wholesale re-set.

“This was about finding the right fit at the right time,” he said. “So making an appointment in January is very different than making an appointment in the off season, when you can build around the entire organisational structure, bring in a new staff and have a pre-season to prepare.”

That may be so, yet there is also no hiding the fact this is a huge appointment for Bilkul. Approaching 18 months since their crucial takeover, the scars of the near financial disaster under the previous regime remain and will again impact this summer’s transfer dealings.

But such is the confidence in their methods and the data-driven approach which influenced the appointments of Mowbray and now Mason, they need this one to work.

The talk is certainly good. The real test begins a few weeks from now.