Marked for Chris Mepham
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around West Bromwich Albion are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Alex Mowatt goes up and wins it — 7.66
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Preston left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Toby Collyer gets it from the manager
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Brayann Pereira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Chris Mepham knocks on the manager’s door
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
Chris Mepham in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at West Bromwich Albion training over how hard people work
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Chris Mepham knocks on the manager’s door
“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.