West Brom boss' 'irrelevant' claim when it comes to Championship clubs' consistency struggles
Boss Ryan Mason claims the struggle for consistency across the board in the Championship is 'irrelevant' to Albion.
The second-tier table is showing few signs of spreading out after 11 fixtures with Mason's Baggies in Suffolk to tackle relegated Premier League outfit Ipswich on Saturday lunchtime.
Wednesday's defeat at Watford saw Albion drop to 10th when victory would have taken them third.
The table reads just three points up to third, while only four separate the Baggies and Portsmouth in 17th. Mason is not interested in the layout of the league and is determined to focus on his own club's journey.
"Other clubs are irrelevant to me and irrelevant to us," Mason said when asked about numerous clubs striving for consistency. "We're on our own journey.
"I think the challenging thing you saw on Wednesday is that we're not one of the biggest squads and that's something that we need to manage.
"There's also some players inside of the team at the moment that it's probably not right to play them three games in a week because they've not built up the robustness and they're not ready to do it.
"There was illness (Krystian Bielik) and a contact injury (for Alfie Gilchrist), which is disappointing and something we can do nothing about."
Albion face an Ipswich side down in 14th and noticeable about the start of the current campaign is just one relegated Premier League side boosted by parachute payment - ninth-placed Leicester - in the top 13 places.
Consistency has so far evaded a number of clubs including Mason's Albion, whose sole back-to-back victories came in the first two league games of the season, though they were separated by a penalty shootout defeat in the EFL Cup.
