“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” West Bromwich Albion have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brayann Pereira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by David Grant to a room that had heard them before.
One booking too many, and a game watched from the stand. West Bromwich Albion lose him for the most avoidable reason in the sport.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Jed Wallace is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sheffield Wednesday in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Marked 5.22. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
In brief
The terracesThe Aune Heggebø rumours reach the terraces
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Aune Heggebø takes the afternoon — 9.07
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aune Heggebø provided it, and the 9.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alex Mowatt and West Bromwich Albion agree another 4 years.
Marked 8.12 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at West Bromwich Albion can tell you which week it ends in.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; West Bromwich Albion are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at West Bromwich Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. West Bromwich Albion lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.66 for the rest of it.
Chris Mepham and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Marked 8.13 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 David Grant left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Aune Heggebø
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The offer from Brighton for Toby Collyer was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chris Mepham and West Bromwich Albion agree another 4 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manchester City have kept their man, and West Bromwich Albion go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Chris Mepham trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Alex Williams
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at West Bromwich Albion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Brayann Pereira and West Bromwich Albion agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at West Bromwich Albion can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayann Pereira is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Chris Mepham trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.