Road to Nowhere...

You’ll have seen the rumours, heard the gossip, gasped at the detail, and re-posted it to within an inch of your life.

There was, according to the wild west of social media, a bust-up at the Albion training ground this week.

Things have been played down by those close to the club.

I have my own views around it all – that’s for another day. As always the truth lurks somewhere half-way between one side and another.

But the bigger question is why is anyone remotely bothered that this alleged bust up between Jayson Molumby and Eric Ramsay might have happened?

The bigger story would be that a bust-up hadn’t happened – that Albion’s failing footballers, for instance, might be playing leapfrog during set-piece practice, or high-fiving each other during warm-ups. Footballers and coaches falling out with each other when things are bad are part and parcel of the game. Who cares? These things happen all the time. They even happen when results are going well.

There are bigger issues to consider here.

Football clubs are horrendous places when things are going badly. Players and coaches will be snarling at everyone within the training ground, while those who work in non-footballing roles will be tip-toeing around desperately trying to avoid saying the wrong thing - even though none of it is their fault. All staff keep their head down, nobody smiles, everyone prays the next game will bring respite - a 1-0 victory perhaps, or a draw at least. When results are bad everyone on the outside hates you.

Our friends in ‘admin’ dare not post a birthday greeting to a former player in case it incurs the wrath of someone saying: 'I wish he could play on Saturday' – even though aforementioned player has just turned 67-years-old, or has been deceased for 18 years – let alone the reaction to comments from a beleaguered manager or player, desperately wishing he wasn't on media duties after yet another bad result. Everyone listening and watching is full of spittle, rage and anger. That’s football, 2026.

Of bigger concern is how Albion have put themselves in this position. That's where your story is.

Andrew Nestor: Remember him?

We are to assume he will leave the club. Indeed he already has. I was told in early January that his 'recruitment' teeth had been removed.

This saga gets worse. I am informed that when Ramsay was about to be unveiled there were panicked senior staff members frantically trying to locate Nestor’s whereabouts, wondering whether he was going to turn up to the press conference to announce the new coach, or was on leave, or whether he was already in persona non grata territory. The internal communications completely failed. Yes, it really was that chaotic. Nobody knew where he was.

It was, for want of a better phrase, an utter shambles.

Nestor did not turn up.

Instead, a somewhat disengaged and dishevelled Shilen Patel faced the press – presenting a united front against the backdrop of a growing culture of disharmony.

Nestor, by the way, has redacted some elements of his LinkedIn profile during the last few weeks, while also disappearing from public view. There were stories that he did not endorse the recent appointment of Ramsay, leading to his no-show at the unveiling. It's all a little bit mysterious, wouldn't you say?

The likelihood is that Nestor DID rate Ramsay as a coach, but his own squad recruitment over the last 18 months or so had drawn the personnel away from the favoured 3-4-3 favoured by Ramsay. If we are being kind, we can assume that Ramsay was someone favoured by Nestor…but in 2024, not in 2026. Right guy, wrong squad. In any event, he's gone. (By the way: several journalists have reported the story and produced different outcomes: that's fine. Reporters, ideally, build up a story based on different interpretations, based on their contacts. Clubs will inevitably give their side of the story to control reputational damage. What people need to be asking is, which is the version of events they believe...)

And while we are on the subject of recruitment, I find it somewhat troubling to learn some of Albion’s head coaches/managers had been removed from the transfer process to the point of not being invited to recruitment meetings. Imagine that: you are manager/head coach of a football club, but have absolutely zero input into the comings and goings.

What next, data analysts picking the first XI? Don't even go there. I am informed one Baggies boss was walking through the corridor, next to the ‘recruitment HQ’, only to have the door slammed shut in his face as he prepared to exchange pleasantries with staff. Nice. This is the culture that prevails.

This isn’t a good way to run a football club. While there is an appreciation for handing over recruitment away from a manager or head coach's remit, surely they should never be excluded from the process. Again, this is where West Bromwich Albion finds itself.

Molumby vs Ramsay on a Monday morning, after a shocking defeat, is barely an undercard to how some of the managers have been treated on Nestor’s watch, let alone how the club has been run by the current owners.

Let us not forget that this season’s appointments were a 34-year-old coach scraped from the worst-ever Tottenham side of this century. He had never managed before, and it showed. Yet, who knew his time in charge would prove to be a potential highlight? He was replaced by a coach, of the same age, who had no pedigree as a player, but had done a decent job  as chief of Minnesota in the jeopardy-free US soccer leagues. Ramsay speaks well, but again, Albion's recruitment speaks to the LinkedIn-ification of the process – those who say the right things, get the job. Gentlemen, this isn’t how football works.

Where is the football intelligence?

Where are the people who are immersed with sporting governance and administration?

Consider this: would you expect a manager risk playing a team of rookie teenagers, who are not streetwise, lacking in emotional intelligence, and have no experience in adversity? Of course not.

Yet our executives have effectively done this with their recruitment of two totally inexperienced managers. All because of something called 'data'. Football data is fine, but it should prop up and support your recruitment.

The moment you use it as a driver for recruitment you lose that crucial element of scouting (be it of players, or coaches): personality, character, people skills, and all of those human characteristics that are so important in football. You don’t need an iPad or spreadsheet to recognise who is and isn’t playing, or managing, well. More so, data won’t tell you who will and won’t adapt well to your club and playing style.

Football has always been about people and how those people behave, react, how they settle into a club, and what they are capable of producing within a pressured environment - something that data will never specify. You cannot replicate human emotion, endeavour, attitude, aptitude, personality, will, character through number-crunching.

Football in the US is of a certain level, and the stewardship of footballers is, ultimately, reliant on management skills. But there is a certain level of skill, aptitude and challenge that differentiates the American model to the English EFL model. Again, whether this was Nestor’s call, or Patel’s shout…who knows? The question is: who thought the appointment of Ramsay during the apex of a relegation battle would be a better shout than somebody who has the capabilities of managing such a crisis? Because that's what it is: a crisis. A crisis of Bilkul's own doing.

Nestor is seemingly gone. Let’s not mourn a man who has presided over a club that has wilted since Carlos Corberan left.

It is an absolute slur that Nestor's name as 'president' sits alongside some of the great names in West Bromwich Albion's history, including Everiss, Millichip, and Silk.

I digress.

All eyes are on the Patel stewardship of the club. Where is the growth of revenue streams? Where is the want to expand West Bromwich Albion’s fanbase and potential? Why is the matchday experience the same now as it was in 2016? Actually, it isn’t. It’s worse.

The Saturday experience and lack of engagement into Albion as an entity are quibbles for another time - and, trust me, we will return there - but Shilen Patel and co desperately need to steer their own investment into a better place.

So, if Molumby and Ramsay did don their proverbial boxing gloves: good. Hopefully we'll find out who came out on top.

But, make no mistake, players and coaches supposedly playing pat-a-cake during training is nowhere near the worst thing happening at West Bromwich Albion right now.