The news that Ian Pearce will be West Bromwich Albion’s new head of footballing operations and Mark Miles will assume the duties as CEO has left fans uninspired. Miles has worked at the club for 20 years but never in a footballing capacity, leading to concerns over his being underqualified. Pearce has been West Brom’s head of recruitment since 2018 and has since overseen the darkest period of the club’s modern history.

With this being said, they’ve made their plans for the upcoming season clear. Miles said in an interview with the club that they will build a squad to “compete for promotion”. Pearce explained how they intend to do this in a Q&A with the club where he stated that he will mainly look at signing free transfers, loans, and players from lower leagues. They also made it clear that selling players was imperative to making this happen.

Carlos Corberan’s Vision

Another thing mentioned throughout both interviews was the importance of building a squad in head coach, Carlos Corberan’s vision. He joined West Brom midway through last season with them 24th in the Championship and instilled a possession-based 4-2-3-1 approach which saw them just miss out on play-offs on the final day.