Gary Megson: West Brom 'too quick' to accept Premier League fate

The former Baggies boss also believes the board acted hastily by ending his time in caretaker charge and appointing Alan Pardew as permanent head coach.

Megson took responsibility for first-team affairs for two matches after Tony Pulis was axed last November.

Under Pardew, Albion have won only once in the Premier League and now sit 10 points adrift of safety with just seven games to play.

Asked about the club’s predicament during an appearance on You Are The Ref, Megson said: “It does pain me. Probably it (relegation) is inevitable now. But it wasn’t three or four games ago and yet they were talking like that.

"They have been sending out all the signals and I think it is really poor. Every signal has been ‘we are down and we will try to sort it out next season’.

“It is not as easy as that. You are not down until you can’t get the points.

“When I was at Bolton we were five points adrift with five games to go but got 11 points to stay up.

“Sometimes you need a catalyst. You win one game and another one goes in your favour, everything changes.”

Megson, who twice won promotion to the Premier League with Albion, returned to the club as Pulis’s assistant last summer, following the departure of Dave Kemp.

He then steered the Baggies to draws against Tottenham and Newcastle while as caretaker – a role he believes the board should have let him keep for longer.

“There was a bit of bounce about the place,” said Megson. “I thought they should have left it a bit.

“If we had played the next Saturday and been beaten 7-0 than I would be on my bike.

“It had changed a bit. Had I been in charge of the club, as the chairman or owner, I would have thought ‘just leave that, there is no need to do anything yet’.

“It might have got better, it might have got worse. The club made their choice.

"Alan (Pardew) even rang me up to thank me for what I'd done as caretaker and said: ‘you’ve stolen my thunder a little bit’.

“Usually when you go in as a new manager you are picking it up from something that has gone on. But at Albion the lift had already started.

“They have made decisions and quite a few over the season which in my view are the wrong decisions.”