Sam Allardyce said he was sorry to sign with West Bromwich Albion in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.
When a team is in danger of relegation, they invariably turn to the former England manager first. Shortly after firing Slaven Bilic in December 2020, West Brom played the dice for Premier League survival by adding the 69-year-old.
Due to Covid-19 limits, the season has already begun under extremely difficult conditions, and Allardyce was unable to handle the inherent difficulties of managing at the Hawthorns during this time. The offices and rooms, too small in his opinion, added to the enormity of the work.
“If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have accepted the position because of how restrictive it was, especially for West Brom,” Allardyce told Birmingham Live. The limited size of the facilities made it difficult to provide the players with information and other necessities.
“With Covid constraints, there was not a room large enough to have a team meeting in its entirety. It was really annoying that you were attempting to hold two different meetings.
It was less successful than speaking to all of your players at once. Then, several of the Covid players experienced numerous long-term problems. From a physical and psychological perspective, they were still not over it, even if they were no longer infected.
With their statistics, you could see that. In a brief amount of time, it was a challenging task. You need to get started almost right away since you don’t have time to make a difference.
That got really challenging. The team wasn’t good enough, despite our best efforts and the efforts of the players we brought in to try and improve things. It’s not necessary to be a manager—I believe the supporters saw that.”
After the season, Allardyce resigned, with the Baggies coming in 19th place.
