West Brom face a pivotal 2024, with January perhaps marking the start of a steep decline for the Baggies.
For West Brom, 2023 has been a fairly positive year on the pitch.
Carlos Corberan has worked his magic and now has West Brom challenging for promotion to the Premier League, despite a lack of investment and a string of key injuries.
Off the pitch, matters remain tense, with the Baggies coming to a key turning point in their longer-term future.
Takeover talks are ramping up ahead of January with it said that the Baggies’ finances are set to run dry by January/February time, meaning that a takeover is paramount for the club.
Nancy Froston backs West Brom to avoid January ‘firesale’
Right now, it seems 50/50 whether West Brom secure new owners and new funding in January.
But should the club not secure a takeover then that could mean quickfire player sales in the January transfer window, which would undoubtedly pull the plug on their promotion ambitions this season.
And speaking on The Real EFL podcast, The Athletic’s Nancy Froston was asked if she thinks a January ‘firesale’ could happen at West Brom.
She said:
“Looking at the kind of players West Brom have got, I suppose you’ve got to look who might be buying them and who might be after them, and to be honest, I think unless there’s a couple of players that are really interesting in terms of the profile to a Premier League club, above them [West Brom] in the Championship, so the top end Championship clubs where there is a bit more money, I kind of feel that they’re all quite settled in terms of squad, or they’ll be shopping overseas.
“It’d be interesting to see if anything happens. Personally, I think if they’ve got that loan then it’s sensible to back the manager, especially given how well he did with Huddersfield… But again, it just depends on that tricky thing of owners maybe wanting as much if not more than what they’ve put in, which in football is really hard to actually recoup.”
Stick or sell for the Baggies?
It’s a difficult situation for sure.
The best case scenario is that West Brom get new owners in place early in January, keep their players and maybe even sign one or two new faces.
The worst case scenario is that a takeover falls through and West Brom are forced to offload their most valuable assets, with the months after that presenting the club with huge financial uncertainty.
So whether or not a firesale occurs in January really depends on the state of the takeover.
Those involved have this month to move proceedings along as fast as possible so that, come January, the club can finalise a takeover early doors.
But should the takeover hit a few obstacles, which they often do, then it’ll be a nervy month for the Baggies and the longer a takeover deal rumbles on for, the higher the chances of player sales.
There’s definitely progress being made on the takeover front and so there’s hope yet. But Baggies fans won’t be counting their promotion chances until January is over and the club’s future is intact, and the key players remain.