'The players cannot get another free pass': Jonny Drury on West Brom squad after Tony Mowbray sacking

Express & Star

Jonny Drury and Lewis Cox discussed the sacking of Tony Mowbray and why the players have to take part of responsibility in his departure.

Transcript

00:00I've been thinking a lot over the drive home last night and when I got home,

00:06I was kind of, I didn't quite know what to think.

00:09And the overriding emotion is sadness.

00:12The other overriding emotion is anger.

00:13And a lot of that's pointed towards the players,

00:15which we'll come on to in a minute.

00:17I think when you strip it back and look at it,

00:21you know, on one hand,

00:24I don't think you become a bad football manager overnight.

00:27I don't think Tony Mowbray is a bad football manager.

00:30I'm pretty sure he's going to go somewhere else and probably do okay.

00:34On the balance of that, is it the right call?

00:37I think it probably is.

00:41However, you know, when a manager gets sacked,

00:46he obviously carries the camp.

00:48But the players, I don't want to collectively put them all in

00:54because it doesn't count for all of them.

00:56But the performance on Friday was a disgrace.

00:58Yesterday was probably even worse.

01:02And, you know, when your manager's coming out and calling out characters,

01:06well, saying we've got no characters and, you know,

01:08we've got no personality inside.

01:11That's kind of something we've probably all known.

01:14Under Korberan, we kind of forgot about it

01:16because he did get a tune out of them.

01:17But there are players in this squad that, yes,

01:22Valerian Ishmael's football was purged to watch.

01:24Bruce left Albion in the bottom three, you know,

01:26and he carries most of the can for that.

01:28But some players that let Big Val down,

01:30they let Bruce down, you know.

01:33I've seen it from an Albion fan.

01:34Korberan had to micromanage this side.

01:36So we have an inch of their life to get a tune out of them.

01:39They almost let the club down at the end of last season

01:46and nearly blew it and didn't get in the playoffs.

01:49This season, I think the players have let Mowbray down.

01:52Now, Mowbray doesn't get off scot-free either.

01:53Mowbray's made some strange decisions.

01:55It hasn't worked.

01:56It was a fairytale.

01:57They always, like I said, they always say never go back.

01:59You know, it didn't work for Johnny Jars.

02:01It didn't work for Ron Atkinson.

02:04You know, and it hasn't worked for managers at other clubs.

02:06But the players have to have a long, hard look at themselves

02:10after what has happened.

02:13And like I said, I don't want to sit on the fence.

02:17And I will say that Mowbray got things wrong.

02:19Some of his selections were strange.

02:21Like we said, some of his comments on certain things were strange.

02:23He put too much trust in players that have continually

02:25let West Bromwich Albion down over the last few years.

02:28And, you know, the manager, you can't sack a squad

02:31and the manager will, you know, bear the brunt of it in the end.

02:34But when I'm seeing people labelling it all at Tony Mowbray's door,

02:37I don't think that's entirely fair.

02:39No, it's just wrong.

02:40It's wrong to do that.

02:42Yet, it may turn out to be the right decision.

02:44There's loads of different caveats to this.

02:46But I'm left with sadness that Mowbray has been let down by the players.

02:50And I'm angry that the way Albion have kind of fallen apart

02:55and the players just look like they just weren't up for the fight.

02:58There's blame on both sides, but I hope I speak for a lot of Albion fans.

03:02Everyone wanted it to work for Mowbray.

03:04It hasn't worked.

03:05Fair enough.

03:05You move on.

03:06You go the separate ways.

03:07But the players cannot get off scot-free from this.

03:10And I hope, you know, Shillam Patel was there yesterday.

03:12We've got a few photographs of him in our gallery.

03:16And he didn't look too pleased.

03:18Obviously, he wasn't pleased with the manager that he's made that call.

03:20I hope he is not pleased with a lot of these players.

03:23It's not just the out-contract ones, some of the players that are under contract

03:27that, for me, have got to go in the summer as well.

03:30This sack in Mowbray doesn't solve all Albion's issues.

03:33I hope they know that.

03:33I'm pretty sure they know that.

03:36I don't know where the end of this point is going.

03:38It's just purely...

03:39No, no, just to pick you up.

03:40...frustration on the whole situation.

03:42Yeah, you talked about leadership and characters, what Tony said, you know,

03:48in his final press conference, they lack, they need to sign.

03:51That says a lot, doesn't it?

03:52He also, the one you missed was courage, you know, cojones, balls.

03:57And that's what we've said for a while and what fans have said for years, isn't it?

04:02You know, when did they last show up when it counts?

04:04You know, when did they last show up when they last show up when they last show up when they last show up?

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