West Brom in advanced talks to appoint Raphael Wicky | OneFootball

West Brom are in advanced talks with Raphael Wicky.

West Bromwich Albion are in advanced talks with Raphael Wicky over the head coach vacancy at the Hawthorns.

This is according to John Percy of the Telegraph, who has exclusively revealed that Wicky is the preferred choice of the Baggies' hierarchy.

The Midlands club have been without a boss since Carlos Corberan departed the club for Valencia on Christmas Eve last year.

Since then, Chris Brunt, Damia Abella and Boaz Myhill have overseen first-team duties, picking up five points from their four games in charge. That has left Albion sitting in sixth place, one point in advance of Blackburn Rovers.

If Wicky is appointed, his job will be to build on the strong foundation left by Corberan and try to secure a second successive season in the play-offs.

Raphael Wicky now favourite for West Brom job

As detailed in the aforementioned post on X (formerly Twitter), Wicky is leading the race for the West Brom job and could be appointed in the coming days.

According to Percy, negotiations are ongoing but the former BSC Young Boys (YB) head coach has held detailed discussions already with the club's hierarchy.

Supposedly, the interest in the former Swiss international came about due to Albion's data-driven approach, spearheaded by sporting director Andrew Nestor.

This report is in contrast to yesterday's admission from Football Insider, who believed that the other candidate, Rene Hake, had verbally agreed to become the West Brom manager.

With it now seeming likely that this ordeal is nearing an end, Baggies fans can rest easy as Wicky based on numbers seems like a real shrewd appointment.

Raphael Wicky will look to build on Corberan's work

Departing for Valencia, Corberan has left the club in a decent position, with Albion only tasting defeat four times this term.

Wicky's task will be to maintain this resilience and, ideally, convert some of those 11 draws into victories.

Reflecting on his managerial career, the former Atlético Madrid player's most notable success as a coach came during his time at YB, where, in the 2022-23 season, he led the club to a domestic double, winning both the Swiss Super League and the Swiss Cup.

Leaving the club the season after, he departed with a points-per-game record of 1.97, as the 47-year-old won 51 of his 88 games in charge.

If he could maintain this sort of record at Albion, then they would finish around the 80-point mark, which would comfortably be enough to secure a play-off spot.