As the summer transfer window ends, West Bromwich Albion can look back on this window as one of the most successful for the club, since being in the Championship in 2021.
The club let first team players Grady Diangana, John Swift and Semi Ajayi go at the end of their contracts and the selling of academy starlet Tom Fellows as well graduate Caleb Taylor and starting full-back Darnell Furlong.
The Task Of Hiring A New Coach For West Bromwich Albion
This let the club in another state of rebuild, especially having the task of appointing a new Head Coach following the sacking of Tony Mowbray towards the end of last season.
The club went through a short list of managers and turned to Ryan Mason. A young and inexperienced coach but with new ideas to bring the Premier League days back to the Hawthorns. Mason’s coaching career has been at Tottenham Hotspur up until now with Mason also taking charge of Spurs in an interim position on a couple of occasions.
His first chance at managing came in 2021 after Jose Mourinho was sacked on the 20th of April 2021 and Mason was placed in charge until the end of the campaign where he was at the helm for Spurs’ 1-0 defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup Final. His second stint at Spurs was in 2023 after Antonio Conte was relived from his duties in April, taking over the club’s final few games of the 2022/2023 season.
Despite this, Ryan Mason is a coach who looks to be relishing an opportunity of being a permanent manager somewhere, and on the 2nd of June 2025, West Brom gave him the chance.
The Signings
The Albion starting proceedings with the signing of Nat Phillips from Liverpool for a fee of £3m. Phillips had featured for Liverpool in the Premier League and Champions League in past seasons and had performed to a high standard. This signing for West Bromwich Albion is very much a coup for the West Midlands side given his experience in top competitions.
The next one through the door was Aune Heggebø, a striker who had been compared to as the “next Erling Haaland” due to a similar career path and style of play. He was bought in from SK Brann for a fee of £4.75m and with a strong fee like that for an EFL club who haven’t had parachute payments for 2 seasons, he looks to be someone who will often be starting for the baggies.
The Baggies then looked to sharpen up the back line as 3 centre backs were signed for the club as George Campbell came in from Montreal, Krystian Bielik came in from league rivals Birmingham City both for a fee of £1m and Wales international Chris Mepham joined from Bournemouth for an undisclosed fee.
These three signings alone would give the Albion a solid and steady defence, an area which has let the club down in the past especially when taking the lead and the ability to keep a hold of it.
The final permanent deal for West Bromwich Albion was the right-back Alfie Gilchrist from Chelsea for an undisclosed fee. Gilchrist has featured in 17 games in all competitions for the blues and has scored 1 goal which came against Everton in April 2024. The 21-year-old spent the entirety of last season at play-off finalists Sheffield United where he made 32 appearances in all competitions.
The Midland’s outfit made three loan signings this summer, being the acquisitions of Toby Collyer from Manchester United, Samuel Iling-Junior from Aston Villa and Charlie Taylor from Southampton.
All three of these players will improve the squad by giving the club players who have played at the highest level of domestic football and can utilise their attributes to help push the club up to where they strive to be.
Is It Enough For Promotion?
With all this said, do these transfers help West Brom get promoted. Yes, it should. In fact, this is one of the best squads that the Albion have probably had in recent years and should be good enough to be not only challenging for play-offs but maybe challenging for automatic promotion.
However, the strength that the relegated sides will have may prove to be difficult, although this can and most likely will be judged in January as to where West Brom sit, come new year.
