ALEX Palmer, Dara O’Shea, Semi Ajayi…
There are more.
Cedric Kipre, Jason Molumby, Jeremy Sarmiento, Adam Reach, Okay Yokuslu, Grady Diangana, Matt Phillips…
Hang on; I haven’t finished.
Daryl Dike, Josh Maja.
I think that’s everyone, right?
All of these players have spent significant time receiving treatment for various injuries of significant magnitude during Carlos Corberan’s first 365 games in charge of West Bromwich Albion.
Oh, what’s this? Martin Kelly and Tom Rogic, of course.
They all count.
Put it this way, if somebody was to bring a ‘birthday’ cake in for the Albion boss on his one-year anniversary today, I’d half expect one of the players to suffer third degree burns as he blows out the candle and at least another one to drop a piece of it on his foot.
Kyle Bartley…yes, Kyle Bartley.
Ah shit - how could I forget the Stockport-born slayer?
This isn’t a naff re-release of The Beloved’s Hello.
More so, a state of the Albion nation. It’s been that kind of 12 months for the Throstles manager. Injuries; both long-term and short term. Too many long-term, sadly.
Albion’s training ground has done away with dressing rooms and replaced them with triage rooms and a hospital ward. Send grapes. Send Lucozade.
Corberan has waved his captain off up the M6. Others have gone too. The reinvestment has been mainly focused around wages and maximising value from what is little is available, rather than spending on transfer fees. That’s the kind of club Albion are these days.
We are of course a society that allows free opinion – to some degree at least. But just because there are people who insist on adding pineapple to their pizza, or who think Doom Bar is an acceptable beer of choice, it doesn’t mean we are all going to agree with it.
Corberan has managed 43 games. Of those, his side have won 21 matches, drawn nine and lost 13. The return of 72 points works out at 77 points over the course of a season. Or fifth spot, on average, in most seasons. Seventeen clean sheets while we’re at it.
There are merits and deficiencies to how he shapes his team, and how he arranges his personnel on and off-the-ball. Those are discussions for another time.
His first XI is a discussion for debate. But maybe it’s time to step back from the parochial nature of this debate. In this era of multiple substitutions, it is undoubtedly the strength of a bench that dictates the outcome and results, not just the eleven he chooses. Selections are combed from a group of footballers he watches and assesses on a daily basis, with the input of sports scientists, data analysts and other sets of expert eyes. This is where footballers have their chance to impress. And Corberan gets much more right than he gets wrong.
Opposition managers and players sometimes get one over Albion – that’s football. It remains a game of endless variables, where you’re dealing with 16 individuals over a period of 90+ minutes. Sometimes it works for us; sometimes it doesn’t. God dammit, some teams have even better players and managers. It's where WBA are.
And yet this is more a reflection of a bigger picture. This is a tale of a manager who has brought hope.
Nearly 20 clean sheets in 43 EFL games are Megson-levels of defensive aptitude, not least when you compare the quality of players each manager had at their disposal. Corberan has improved certain footballers, which is the true measure of a coach who is doing more than merely picking his side every week.
You might not agree with all he does. You might think he’s the second coming.
Corberan is still wrestling Premier League expectations against a reality nearer to 1990s’ standards. It is a mental grapple that continues to rage within each stand of The Hawthorns, Albion’s social media, and every Black Country barstool discussion.
The top flight feels a world away right now. It seemed even further away 12 months ago when demotion to League One looked more likely. That we can even consider a top six finish is down to the man celebrating his first anniversary.
Raise a glass to that tonight.
(pic thanks to Laurie Rampling)
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