Alan Pardew has mutually agreed with West Brom to step down from the managerial seat at the Hawthorns. Recent reports claim that Everton’s first team coach, Craig Shakespeare has been touted to be his replacement along with Nigel Pearson.
West Bromwich Albion and Alan Pardew have agreed to mutually part company following discussions between both parties.#WBAhttps://t.co/5nB4TJWdes
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) April 2, 2018
Shakespeare already has ties with the Baggies from his playing days back in the early 90s. The 54-year-old represented the club in 112 league games and later transferred to Grimsby Town.
In 1999, he re-joined Albion as an entry-level coach, responsible for the grass-root level player coaching and was later promoted to the academy management. After Bryan Robson and Nigel Person left the club in 2006, Shakespeare was given the caretaker position of the West Brom first team for just one game.
This was the start of his senior management career as the Birmingham-born man was later recruited by Pearson himself at Leicester City. Shakespeare even managed to hold onto the assistant manager post despite Pearson getting sacked in the summer of 2015.
He was appointed the first team coach following Claudio Ranieri’s firing and Leicester City’s title-winning 2015/16 season. But after a run of poor displays with the club nearing the relegation scraps, he too faced the axe 2 months into the season.
Now, Sam Allardyce has taken him into his wing upon his appointment in early December and the duo has worked towards establishing the club to European qualification status. The Toffees looked troubled earlier in the season but on the managerial change have returned to the top-half of the table.
But West Brom, on the other hand, are currently undergoing their worst season in the English top-flight. They have won just 3 games in the league and are placed at the bottom-most spot of the points table, 10 points adrift of safety.
Both Tony Pulis and Pardew have failed to work around the resources at hand and it will take a miracle for a newcomer to boost them out of the bottom three. Whether Shakespeare is capable of delivering such a result is questionable but his current boss and mentor might just be.
Allardyce is well known in the Premier League for his ability to save teams from relegation with a no-nonsense style of gameplay. He gave Sunderland a breathing line in 2016 and just last year helped Crystal Palace survive the drop to the Championship.
If anything, a few tips and tricks will be passed on to Shakespeare and maybe the Baggies can remain hopeful of the impossible.
