West Brom have rung the changes by terminating the contract of manager Tony Pulis as the club teeter just one point above the relegation zone.
Rumours that Pulis might not be long for this world job have been circulating for weeks, with a 4-0 home barrelling from Chelsea on Saturday afternoon proving to be the embarrassing result that broke the camel’s back.
Baggies chairman John Williams confirmed as much in a massively generic statement released on Monday morning:
These decisions are never taken lightly but always in the interests of the club.
We are in a results business and over the back end of last season and this season to date, ours have been very disappointing.
We would like to place on record our appreciation of Tony’s contribution and hard work during a period of transition for the Club which included a change of ownership.
We wish him well in his future endeavours.
The club also confirmed that Pulis’ assistant, Gary Megson, has agreed to take charge of first-team affairs until further notice.
Of course, Pulis did a bog standard ‘Pulis’ of a job at the Hawthorns, keeping them afloat in numbing top-tier stasis, nourished solely on a thin gruel made from headers scored from corners, without ever threatening to aspire to more.
In the near-three years he spent in charge, West Brom have scored less than a goal a game in the Premier League (105 goals in 106 matches), having won just two of their last league 21 fixtures, stretching back to the start of April.
Previously, Pulis’ team of electric daredevils at Crystal Palace managed 26 goals in his 26 games, and it was a similarly depressing story during his Stoke tenure too, with 188 goals flying in over 190 games.
Honestly, Pies would prefer the odd relegation hither and thither to that kind of dull, unrelenting drudge.