West Bromwich Albion have serious football pedigree. They were founder members of the Football League and, more recently, have played 13 seasons in the Premier League.
They’ve been champions of England and have won both domestic cup competitions but Albion haven’t had much to shout about lately.
The West Midlands clubs in general haven’t made much of a racket this side of the millennium but just as their neighbours have clawed their way back into the headlines for reasons both good and bad, West Brom seem to be getting lost in the noise.
West Bromwich Albion's West Midlands rivals have been hogging the headlines
Birmingham, the Black Country and the surrounding areas are an overlooked football wellspring. Living and breathing football when the game doesn’t give much back is an endurance test and, in the West Midlands, every club has offered ample opportunity to practice.
There have been signs that league football in the region is creaking back to life. At one end of the professional game, Aston Villa have qualified for Europe in each of the last three seasons. At the other, Walsall are pushing for promotion to the third tier again after their startling collapse in 2024-25.
Wolverhampton Wanderers are attracting the wrong kind of attention after several years in the top flight and indeed their own European adventure, while three historic West Midlands rivals are embroiled in a Championship battle to be the first to return to the Premier League.
Coventry City are 10 points clear at the top under Frank Lampard, tearing teams limb from limb in a determined attempt to take their newly repatriated stadium into the big time.
Birmingham City, freshly promoted from the third tier, haven’t yet backed up their bullish hollering but have been consistently in the news thanks to the loudhailer ownership of Tom Wagner, a documentary series and, last week, the revealing of their plans for a striking new stadium.
If Coventry are walking the walk and Birmingham talking the talk, West Brom are trying to whisper their way to the Premier League by comparison – never in real danger of losing their second-tier status nor a convincing promotion candidate.
Their 2024-25 tilt, such as it was, effectively ended in defeat at the Coventry Building Society Arena in April.
This season, the Baggies were 2-0 up away at Coventry in a Saturday lunchtime kick-off. They conceded a goal, had a player sent off and ended up with no points as the Sky Blues turned the volume up on their title charge.
In the next game, West Brom took the lead against Birmingham at the Hawthorns after an electric start. Alex Mowatt’s low drive zipped in off the post with the help of a deflection.
Albion looked like they’d go on to score another but were wasteful with a barrage of shots around the edge of the box. Without a second goal, they ran into problems again and dropped more points from another winning position.
Are West Brom the team that move the ball around nicely but don’t put it in the net regularly enough? Only five teams in the Championship have scored fewer goals this season.
Are they the team that can attack with lightning speed in transition through Mikey Johnstone and Karlan Grant but do it too sparingly? They struggle to have the same impact in possession.
Are they both? Maybe. If Albion are to yell above the fuss and fury of the clubs around them, the only place they’re going to do it is on the pitch and that personality, that style, that voice, can only bed in with results.
“We were 1-0 up in a game that we wanted to win, we created the opportunities to go 2-0 up and didn’t make it count, so that’s why I was frustrated” West Brom head coach Ryan Mason told the media after the game against Birmingham at the Hawthorns.
“We’re coming out the wrong end of results where we feel like we have situations to create some distance between us and the opposition and we weren’t able to do that tonight.
“We need to try and help the players to become more clinical in those moments because they’re really big opportunities and it’s not very often in football you get situations like that.”
One point in their last two matches leaves the Baggies in 17th place with 22 points from 17 matches but closer to the play-off places than the relegation zone.
The 2025-26 season is yet to be written at the Hawthorns. West Brom can still say anything they want.
Losing twice from winning positions against West Midlands opponents whose stories are more easily amplified is a setback but there’s a lot of football ahead of Mason in his first full season in charge.
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