West Brom 2024/25 season review: Success, failures, what's next and more

Former Tottenham assistant coach Ryan Mason was this week confirmed as new head coach at The Hawthorns.

Albion finished ninth, four points adrift of the play-offs, but in reality inconsistent form across most of the piece did not merit anything more. We have a look at key areas across the campaign.

Successes

Expectations soared from those of an Albion perspective - apart from then boss Corberan - as the Baggies soared to the top of the table after five wins from six to start the season.

It promised much but when things hit the buffers they struggled to recover.

It is rare clubs get all of their transfer business correct, but some of ownership Bilkul's recruitment can be determined a success.

Player of the season Torbjorn Heggem was a revelation for a low fee. Callum Styles also proved to be a success for a similarly modest sum. Patience paid off in January as Isaac Price, the £2.5million midfield recruit, announced his arrival in some style with fine performances.

The performance level of top goalscorer Josh Maja across the first half of the season before injury was exceptional. Karlan Grant returned a different player from Cardiff and shone.

Albion Women signed off the campaign with their first silverware in six seasons with a memorable success in the Birmingham County Challenge Cup.

Failures

The club got the big call wrong in their replacement of Corberan with Mowbray, after an initial pursuit of Raphael Wicky broke down.

Having been given the all-clear from ill health Mowbray made an emotional return 16 years on after club chiefs stressed the data pointed to his ability to coach an improvement in players.

Mowbray, 61, lasted just three months and 17 games into his two-and-a-half year deal. The push for the play-offs broke down after five defeats in six. Several came via last-gasp goals as Albion's desperate away record and alarming lack of wins continued.

A major contributor to the late-season collapse was the sale of goalkeeper Alex Palmer to Ipswich, which could climb to £4million. Mowbray stuck with former deputy Joe Wildsmith, who was at fault for several big errors, and the later change to Josh Griffiths did not help erase mishaps between the sticks.

Maja's goals were not replaced after injury and did not play after January 4. Adam Armstrong was the big deadline day trump card but his loan from Southampton somehow failed dramatically. Albion failed to play to his strengths.

Loans in general have been a problem in recent years. Moves for Uros Racic, Lewis Dobbin, Will Lankshear and Armstrong yielded very little and have to be improved on.

Managers

Corberan's reign of two years and two months came to end in dramatic style by way of a Christmas Eve departure, confirmed by the club at 20 to midnight. It did not make for a happy Christmas.

Things were not rosy prior to his departure and he had been linked with countless jobs, some peddled by representatives as Corberan grew frustrated at certain points.

The three-and-a-half week wait to appoint Mowbray was time-consuming and ultimately ended in failure, leading to a huge call this time around for the powers that be at The Hawthorns. After a hunt of six weeks, most of which was waiting patiently for Mason's season to finish with Europa League glory at Spurs, the 33-year-old was appointed for his first senior role.

The call to appoint Mowbray was to sharpen a blunt squad. To bring an attack-minded, goal-hungry style to counter Corberan's organised and - by and large impressive - pragmatism.

But it brought very little success. The goals did not flow more, Albion became muddled in several departments and other than a brief sign of improvements looked confused by demands and style.

Things unravelled at the other end as Corberan's military-grade discipline and control fell away. There were no clean sheets - Palmer's exit did not help - as defensive solidity disappeared.

Off the field

The most recent set of accounts, released in February but for the accounting period between July 2023 and June 2024, showed a sizeable loss of £34million - with turnover halved - in the stark figures which outline the deep trouble Albion found themselves in prior to the takeover.

Shilen Patel's Bilkul have bankrolled the club to keep it afloat since and that includes the recently-concluded campaign, a second without parachute payments. The owners went into the takeover well aware of the landscape and the club are confident they will not be in breach of financial fair play's profit and sustainability regulations.

Elsewhere, near the beginning of the campaign back in August, it was confirmed no further action would be taken following a thorough independent investigation into the historic 'Jeremy Peace loan' from 2014. A probe was launched to investigate the £3.7m to Peace's WBA Holdings a decade earlier, which minority supporters claimed was to help increase the former chairman's stake in WBA Group.

Albion are well under way with installing safe standing areas at The Hawthorns this summer. Almost 4,000 safe standing areas will be ready in the Smethwick End and Millennium Corner for next term. The ground's exterior and parts inside have also been given a much-needed spruce up ahead of 2025/26 and it has been said the stadium looks gleaming ahead of the new campaign.

There is a supporter desire for The Hawthorns' matchday experience to be improved and the owners should work towards that.

What next?

Much rides on the success of new head coach Mason. It can be, perhaps somewhat lazily, be described as a gamble or risk to give a young coach his first permanent lead role, but in reality most appointments are risks for powers that be at clubs.

Supporters have naturally remained grateful to the new ownership for their investment to secure the club's future, but are also keen to now see on-field progress, which has certainly stunted in the wake of Corberan's exit.

A finish of ninth was well below-par and short of what was expected when Patel said this time last year Albion would improve on the play-off defeat to Southampton.

It will be expected the club make up ground and doing so will also require an improved squad, which will be further refreshed this summer for Mason's start at the helm.

The former England international will check in for pre-season with his group later this month but the squad will evolve over the summer and look very different on September 1. Just like Albion's Hawthorns home of 125 years - the squad needs a freshen up.

Sporting director Andrew Nestor, who oversees recruitment, said recently Albion are two windows into three of their squad rebuild, which leaves plenty to sort both in and out during the summer months.