Time for everyone to start pulling in the same direction

Relegation to the third tier of English football should be virtually unimaginable for West Bromwich Albion.

Afterall, it has only happened once before, back in 1990/91.

But, with the Baggies tumbling into the Championship's bottom three courtesy of Blackburn's win over Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday night, there's a very real possibility that history could repeat itself some 35-years on.

Most casual observers seem bemused by Albion's plight.

A glance at our squad list shows a number of full internationals and a wealth of seasoned Championship pros whose combined talents should be more than capable of seeing The Throstles clear of trouble.

Yet all that ability and experience have amounted to very little of late.

It's not just that Albion are in trouble, it's that they are showing virtually no signs of life.

The Baggies are second bottom in the Championship form table for the last 12 games, only above beleaguered Sheffield Wednesday, and two of the last three games have been nothing short of a complete capitulation.

Fixtures at home to then 22nd placed Norwich and 21st placed Portsmouth should have represented opportunities for Albion to put daylight between themselves and the bottom three.

Instead, they turned into morale-boosting wins for The Baggies' relegation rivals, which also decimated Albion's goal difference, as they lost the two key clashes by an aggregate score of 8-0.

Fans let their feelings be known after both defeats, and some players took exception to that as Isaac Price had to be dragged away from confronting his own supporters at Fratton Park.

Then, that was followed a day later by rumours of a total lack of alignment between President Andrew Nestor and others in the Albion hierarchy, as both parties appeared to try to distance themselves from the appointment of the current boss, Eric Ramsay. Hardly a vote of confidence in the Welshman.

Ramsay is, strategically, a strange appointment given Albion's predicament.

The Baggies squad had clearly been built to play a 4-2-3-1 under previous boss Ryan Mason, but Ramsay, an advocate of three centre-halves at previous club Minnesota United, was always likely to try and change the shape, and so it transpired, with disastrous results.

Without the players to play his system (pacey forwards, naturalised wing-backs and centre-halves with the pace to recover) Ramsay's tactics were left horrendously exposed, and he eventually abandoned his much maligned back five at half-time at Portsmouth, ironically, after the club had stretched their finances a day earlier to bring him in a right wing-back.

Albion's precarious PSR position was always going to mean there would be little latitude to turn over the squad to ensure it was better suited to Ramsay, another fact that made the appointment odd.

However, they did manage to do a little extra late business on deadline day, placing their survival hopes in the hands of two 19-year-olds: Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba from Aston Villa and Hindola Mustapha from Crystal Palace.

All told, Albion's activities over the past month feel desperate, disparate and lacking in real strategy.

What's done is done now, but if a great escape from the hole we have dug for ourselves is to occur, then it will require everyone to get on the same page: management, players, board members and fans.

That has not been the case of late, and unless everyone at the club shows a bit more unity and learns to pull in the same direction, this season will only end one way for Albion.

Listen to more from Chris Hall at the Albion Analysis, external