It was the last weekend in September, right at the end of a European summer. They were heady days for two men whose fates were to become linked.
On the Saturday, Steve Clarke masterminded West Bromwich Albion’s first win at Old Trafford for 35 years. His new signings excelled, his game plan paid off perfectly and his side seemed set for another top-10 finish.
Twenty-four hours later and about 1,800 kilometres further south, Real Betis defeated Villarreal 1-0 in Spain's Primera Liga. It remains significant because, almost six months later, it is still Pepe Mel's last league win as a manager.
Clarke’s successor takes West Brom to Swansea City on Saturday with speculation increasing that he will not ever geta Premier League win. Mel’s English can be incomprehensible but he appears to understand he is in danger of losing a job that it is increasingly odd he was given.
It is all the stranger because this is West Brom, the role model for the aspirational, budget-conscious middle class in the Premier League; West Brom, widely admired for their intelligent recruitment of players and head coaches alike; West Brom, the seeming antithesis of a crisis club.
Not now. Midfielder James Morrison branded them “a soap opera” last week and, in keeping with the miserabilist dramas, there are few happy endings.
Despite triumphing at Old Trafford, they have the fewest wins in the Premier League. Only goal difference separates them from the bottom three and Sunderland, a point below them, have two games in hand.
The masters of quiet progress, no matter who picked the team, risk regressing alarmingly and reverting to the status of a Championship club.
For years, West Brom pursued their own path, employing head coaches when others had managers and trusting a technical director, Dan Ashworth, with much of their transfer business. It is a model many in English football distrust.
It worked well in West Bromwich. Too well. First Roy Hodgson and then Ashworth were lured away by the English Football Association.
Then, this January, the West Brom originals looked in envy at events on England’s south coast. Now they are discovering imitation may be the sincerest form of failure.
A year earlier, Southampton had parachuted in a manager sacked in La Liga, an evangelist for the pressing game who needed no background in the Premier League to make an instant impact. West Brom wanted their own Mauricio Pochettino, their Pochettino effect.
They plumped for Mel. They are discovering it is not as simple as identifying a Spanish speaker with progressive tactics.
Mel wants his players to press. Clarke took them to eighth place with a counter-attacking blueprint, aided by the incessant running of Shane Long and the potent cameos of Romelu Lukaku in the forward line.
It was the product of clear thinking. Now there is confusion, both in the boardroom, where Mel seems to be offered precious little backing, and on the pitch. West Brom are unsure whether to press or not.
Mel, who was in talks for weeks before his appointment, had plenty of time to assess his new charges but still seemed utterly unprepared. An amiable figure looks out of his depth. He has a habit of getting his starting 11 wrong and his substitutions right. Sometimes it is too late to undo the damage done.
He lacks a goal scorer. Whereas the temptation is to suggest relegation-threatened teams are hopeless, West Brom remain well staffed in two thirds of the pitch. They have good players and good professionals alike, even if that core has been reduced by the loss of captain Chris Brunt for six weeks and Mel’s struggles to select the right side.
But they have been impotent in attack. Nicolas Anelka barely scored even before he harmed the club’s reputation with his quenelle gesture. Stephane Sessegnon, brilliant at Old Trafford, has flattered to deceive. No one has more than four league goals. Lukaku is at Everton and Long was sold to Hull City.
That may yet prove the worst decision West Brom made in January. Right now, however, hiring Mel seems a still more damaging choice.
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