West Brom must keep hold of Carlos Corberan amid interest from other clubs

National World - LocalTV

A look at the importance of Corberan.

Transcript

00:00 Charlie, in terms of West Brom, obviously we've already seen a number of managerial shake-ups,

00:07 whether that be from the Premier League down to the Championship and across Europe as well.

00:11 Carlos Corbijn is sort of their shining light. He has been for the last two seasons really,

00:16 since he came in. He's shown that they can get that ambition, they can achieve the play-offs

00:21 and he just needs the backing to go that one further, you feel at times.

00:26 Leicester have obviously promoted Loss, their manager, to Chelsea. They could be looking

00:31 at Carlos Corbijn. How important is it that he is the Albion manager come the first game

00:38 of the new season?

00:40 It's vital. We saw how someone like Steve Bruce did with the current crob at the club.

00:45 They looked like they could be relegated to League One briefly. Corbijn comes in, very

00:49 limited resources. Obviously, lots of Premier League level players in there and top of Championship

00:54 level players would expect him to be near that top of the table. But it's still difficult

00:57 to go and do that, especially with the amount of injuries they've had. His tactics, going

01:02 back to the basics, making sure that they're defensively solid again. Alex Palmer, the

01:07 goalkeeper, got the Golden Glove in the Championship, along with Elan Melia at Leeds United. So

01:13 many clean sheets. It just gives that basis for them to go forward. Maybe they might not

01:17 have the best attackers on the field, the likes of Josh Madger and Daryl Deke being

01:21 injured. They still managed to grind out results because of how defensively solid they were.

01:25 Corbijn's a lot behind that. We saw at Huddersfield Town as well. They sensationally made the

01:30 playoff final despite having a pretty average squad, to be quite honest. So if they lose

01:35 them to Leicester, it's going to be a massive blow. I can't really see anyone else doing

01:39 the same job he is, especially the relationship with the fans. Sheila Ambatel, the new owner,

01:46 really likes Corbijn. He's investing a million pounds into the training ground because of

01:50 Corbijn wanting that investment. I don't think he'll go. I think he's too committed to the

01:55 cause at this point. But you say Leicester, they're in the Premier League, they've got

01:58 the financial backing, he can finally make transfers. He's not been able to spend a penny

02:02 at West Brom just yet. It could prove too tempting. At the moment, though, Graham Potter

02:07 is in talks to become the Leicester manager. Potentially that could save West Brom here.

02:12 But Corbijn, of course, is going to have lots of interest from elsewhere.

02:16 How big is this summer for West Brom fans? Obviously, you mentioned the new owner, so

02:21 he's going to invest. Hopefully, there's a plan to do that this summer for them. How

02:25 important is it that they get a few numbers in and maybe some more quality as a whole

02:30 to just make that side more consistent and go that one step further and make a playoff

02:35 final and then ultimately get promoted?

02:38 I think it's very important that they try and reinvest where they can. They are still

02:44 struggling a little bit with financial fair play rules. They can't go and spend a huge

02:48 amount. They're also looking at potentially losing Okaya Kuzlu to Turkey and as well,

02:54 Cedric Kipray looks like he could leave for a very cheap deal. They're two very important

02:59 players. It's going to be difficult to replace them. So before you can even get started on

03:03 improving, you've got to look to either try and tie them down to new deals or replace

03:07 them as quickly as possible. It's going to be a challenging window for West Brom. There's

03:11 no two ways about it. It's just about trying to convince those key players to stay at the

03:14 club and then maybe adding depth at the base of midfield, I think is one position it needs

03:19 adding to and in attack as well because of so many injury problems. But there's also

03:23 young prospects as well. Tom Fellows has been so impressive on that right-hand side. That's

03:27 someone they don't have to spend any money to create that issue. It's fixed already.

03:31 I think there's a lot of hope there and there's a lot of quality. It's just about keeping

03:34 them around, keeping Corbran there and hopefully adding to the squad as well in the summer.

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