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Pepe Mel is being reported as set to be the new head coach at Malaga in the Spanish second division.
Although the majority of Albion fans deride him, I enjoyed and appreciated what he tried to achieve with the style of play and we played superbly going forward in the games against Cardiff and Spurs. It was disgraceful how the players threw away leads (2-0 v Cardiff, 3-0 v Spurs) in those games.
Despite seeing how we performed in those games and at other times, some of the players decided his style of play wasn't for them and shamefully downed tools.
Consequently, I hope he does very well at Malaga and wish him all the best.
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Well, that's a massive difference to reality.
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We certainly saw some exciting games under him. Unfortunately it was just clearly one of those appointments that was doomed to failure from the start.
I don't think he's exactly derided by Albion fans, he was at the club for such a short period of time to really make any particular impact. In fairness, Alan Irvine could probably stake far more of a claim to have been unfairly criticised by our fanbase but he should never have been appointed in the first place.
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09-22-2022, 10:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-22-2022, 10:57 AM by SW4Baggie.)
I liked Pepe Mel… I think had we given him the summer we’d have seen a very different team, I’m sure it would have been more fun than the AFI-Pulis adventure that followed although admittedly not as successful!
However, he was a pawn in a behind the scenes political game that we’ve arguably never recovered from and was doomed to fail from day one.
Lovely bloke by all accounts.
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Hard to say how much influence Mel had on the end of that season. The players saw him as McDonough's man, brought in so McD could get onto the training pitch and fulfil his dream of being a coach. Popular view is that Downing and Kiely were the guys the team listened to. Who knows?
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I thought the senior pros did an excellent job managing the club in Mel's period of tenure.
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For good and for bad it was a very strong dressing room back then. Brunt and Morrison were on WM the other night and when asked how they motivated themselves for each match, Brunt said it was very much the team motivating each other, with the manager being irrelevant as to how hard they worked.
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A lovely bloke but completely out of his depth, not necessarily through his own fault
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A timely reminder to find a Betis fan and talk to them about Mel when I'm Seville next month!
