Eric Ramsay sent fresh warning over West Brom future - one outcome "wouldn't surprise me" | OneFootball

The new West Bromwich Albion boss has had a terrible start, and FLW's Albion pundit doesn't feel he'll be there much longer unless things change.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

West Bromwich Albion's 2025-26 season is starting to dissolve into chaos. Albion have only taken one point from six games in 2026 so far, and there doesn't appear to have been much improvement in their fortunes on the pitch as a result of sacking Ryan Mason in the first week of January and replacing him with Eric Ramsay.

Ramsay has been in the position since the 11th January, but things haven't improved very much for Albion since then. They remain in the FA Cup as a result of a penalty shootout win against Swansea City in the Third Round, but in the Championship there's been little improvement, with Ramsey's results having included a humbling 5-0 home reversal at the hands of Norwich City and a 3-0 defeat at Portsmouth, who went into that match below Albion in the league table.

And while four games feels like an absurdly short amount of time to judge whether Ramsay's suitability for this position, questions are already starting to be asked. West Brom are now in 21st place in the Championship, just three points above a Blackburn Rovers side who have played a game less than them, have a superior goal difference, and may be about to undergo a new manager bounce following their decision to offload Valerien Ismael.

Concerns expressed over Eric Ramsay's slow West Brom start

Football League World have spoken to our West Brom fan pundit Callum Burgess about Eric Ramsay's slow start at The Hawthorns, and Callum doesn't feel that Ramsay will be with his club unless things start to improve: "I think that if he keeps up his current form, it wouldn't surprise me if his position did become untenable in a short period of time. Four games, three goals scored, twelve goals conceded against teams in and around our situation as well, it's a very poor start."

And Callum is equally concerned by the games that his team have got coming up: "And then you've got teams like Stoke, who've had a decent season and having been aiming to get in the play-offs but have had a bit of a drop-off, Birmingham, who've got some momentum and Coventry, who yes, have lost quite a few games and dropped a lot of points but are still competing for the Championship title, I think it's concerning going into those games in the run of form that we're in."

But while Callum saw a degree of tactical flexibility on the part of Ramsay in their recent defeat at Portsmouth, he's not going to get much more patience unless he fixes the system to suit the players that he has at his disposal: "So I think unless Ramsay changes that system - in the second half against Portsmouth he did go to a four at the back - and does change from his preferred three at the back, which he used at Minnesota and does try and use a system that gets the best out of our players, then hopefully that does bring a change of fortune, but on we've seen so far, you would hope that it doesn't go on much longer and that we don't reach a situation where we've been through so many games and got so few points."

A continuation of poor form after replacing the head coach hints at deeper issues for West Bromwich Albion

There's little question that things weren't going well for West Bromwich Albion by the time they sacked Ryan Mason on the 6th January. At that point, they were in 18th place in the Championship table and seven points above the relegation places. Four weeks on, though, they're four places lower and four points closer to the drop zone.

Things didn't start brilliantly for him, with a 2-3 home defeat against Middlesbrough in his first match in charge, although that needed a 90th-minute winner to secure the points for the promotion-chasing Teessiders. But since then, two results have really stood out. A 1-1 draw at Derby - salvaged with a 95th-minute equaliser - earned him his first point, but a 5-0 home defeat against Norwich City and a 3-0 defeat at Portsmouth on either side of this match were terrible results against other teams near the wrong end of the table.

The question of whether Albion should make another change in the immediate future should things not pick up is an open one. There certainly seems to have been little improvement in their fortunes since Mason's departure from the club. That Ramsay - who is very highly thought of as the mastermind of turning Minnesota United into challengers in MLS - has been unable to turn things around quickly would seem to indicate that the current issues at The Hawthorns may run deeper than him alone.

It's just possible that the departure of sporting director Andrew Nestor could bring about more meaningful change in a structural sense. It's increasingly become a bone of contention that those who occupy these more executive positions are held accountable when they hold overall responsibility for a club's direction in this respect,while head coaches are pushed into the media spotlight to explain themselves when many do not have the amount of control that an 'old school manager' may have had. They're understood to be closing in on Dominic Price of Maccabi Tel Aviv as a replacement for Nestor.

The January transfer window offered a chance to tweak the first-team squad, with goalkeeper Max O'Leary, defender Danny Imray and teenage attacking midfielder Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba arriving over the course of the month, and Joe Wildsmith moving on loan to Middlesbrough on deadline day. Midfielder Svante Ingelsson had been linked with a late move from Sheffield Wednesday, but this wasn't completed by the 7pm deadline, while a possible move for Nottingham Forest's Kyle McAdam also went to the wire, though he ended up at Northampton Town instead.

West Brom evidently didn't think that a complete overhaul of their first-team squad was required during this window. Without big business having been carried out over the transfer window, the sporting director having left the club, and the new head coach under fire after just a handful of matches in charge, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Albion's issues may indeed run deeper than the head coach alone.