Albion complete redemption arc - what's next?

[BBC] [Getty Images] It has been a crazy season for Albion. Three managers, a points deduction, a boardroom departure, a record-breaking defeat and two 6-hour plus runs without scoring a goal. To be honest, the fact that Albion have come out of all of that relatively unscathed is a minor miracle.

You could argue we've come out of it better for the experience. We started the 2025-26 season with an entirely untested rookie manager, but we ended it with one who has been tested in the most trying of circumstances. While James Morrison has (by his own admission) much to learn, he has very little to prove.

The same was not true of Ryan Mason or Eric Ramsay, who arrived with much bigger reputations but proved very little. Under Morrison's leadership, Albion now feel both galvanised and unified. The atmosphere in the decisive game of the season against Ipswich was unparalleled in terms of a regular-season game in recent memory.

A far cry then from the boos that had rung around The Hawthorns after so many Ryan Mason performances and the chants of "you're not fit to wear the shirt" which met the conclusion of most of Eric Ramsay's eight league games. Many of the players, too, have been on a journey of redemption since the start of March. James Morrison called out a number of his senior players after the defeat by Oxford at the end of February, while fans seemed to have also washed their hands of many of their first-team squad.