While it is not saying a lot, this has been much the best week of Alan Irvine’s brief spell in charge of West Bromwich Albion.
After an eye-opening win at Tottenham Hotspur, an emphatic 4-0 demolition of Burnley. Factor in a League Cup triumph and the Premier League's most surprising summer appointment has the vindication that three wins in eight days offers, as well as impressive endorsements of his modus operandi.
“It has been a great week and the players have got the reward for the work we have done,” Irvine said.
The Scot is unglamorous and methodical, and if the same is true of his team, they indicated that organisation and commitment remain attributes that can enable a side to win with a flourish.
“We were terrific,” the coach said.
The sense was that Albion’s fortunes this season rested on two men, both untested in the Premier League: Irvine, whose only managerial experience came with Preston and Sheffield Wednesday, and Brown Ideye, the £10 million (Dh59.6m) record signing of a club who rarely pay big prices.
The sidelined Nigerian is yet to open his league account, but Saido Berahino's double against Burnley – meaning he has scored four of Albion's seven goals – ensured it mattered not.
Irvine, subjected to boos in the home defeat to Everton, met with greater approval as underfunded, injury-hit Burnley were put to the sword.
“It was great to see the stadium as it was today,” Irvine said.
The terrific Graham Dorrans completed a rout, but Albion began in familiar fashion. Their winner at White Hart Lane came when James Morrison headed in Chris Brunt’s right-wing corner.
The formula stayed the same, with only a change in personnel preventing an action replay for the opener. Brunt was again the supplier, but this time Craig Dawson was the scorer.
The set-piece formula worked again for the second goal, when Dorrans flicked on Morrison’s corner and Berahino applied the final touch. Both were a triumph of planning for Albion – “it was great to see,” said Irvine – and frustrating for Burnley, who had kept three consecutive clean sheets precisely because they did not concede such goals.
The first was particularly frustrating as Dawson was a summer target of theirs. Now he has been installed at the centre of Irvine’s defence, along with Albion’s highest-profile summer recruit, Joleon Lescott.
It is an indication of the speed of the overhaul that has taken place at The Hawthorns.
Albion’s success two years ago, when they finished eighth, was based on the central defensive pairing of Jonas Olsson and Gareth McAuley and the midfield axis of Claudio Yacob and Youssouf Mulumbu. Now none is in the team, while Irvine is tasked with integrating 12 signings.
As he is that rarity in England, a head coach rather than a manager, responsibility for their recruitment is shared and not his alone. Yet the different job description helps explain his arrival.
David Moyes’s former assistant, who impressed when Albion interviewed him in 2009, was plucked from the comparative obscurity of running Everton’s academy to a backdrop of incredulity. Carry on like this, and he will acquire more credibility.
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