Alan Irvine shocked by transition from coach to manager at West Brom
Monday 6 April 2015 14:07, UK
Former West Brom manager Alan Irvine has revealed the transition from first-team coach to manager shocked him during his brief spell at the Hawthorns.
Irvine left his coaching role under Roberto Martinez at Everton in June 2014 to replace Pepe Mel as manager at Albion - his third managerial role but first in the top division, in a 21-year coaching career that also included an spells in charge of Preston and Sheffield Wednesday.
Three consecutive defeats over the Christmas period, coupled with just four Premier League wins in total, saw his tenure cut short just 22 games into the season.
And, speaking on a special Easter Monday episode of Goals on Sunday, Irvine admitted he was surprised by the difference between the role of assistant and manager at the top level.
“I spent a long time in coaching and as an assistant before I became a manager,” he told Soccer Extra. “I honestly thought I knew what the job would be like.
“I had five-and-a-half years as David Moyes’ assistant; I worked really closely with him during that time. I worked as a first team coach at Newcastle United under Kenny Dalglish.
I thought if anybody knew what was coming it would be me. But you don’t know until you sit in the chair. It’s a real shock when you actually go and do it. All of a sudden you’re the person everybody wants. Everything comes to you and you get dragged from pillar to post. There are times when you feel as though you can’t actually concentrate on the job that you’re trying to do.
“I was a youth team coach and an academy director, and I thought if anybody knew what was coming next it would be me. But you don’t know until you sit in the chair.
“It’s a real shock when you actually go and do it. All of a sudden you’re the person everybody wants. Everything comes to you and you get dragged from pillar to post.
“There are times when you feel as though you can’t actually concentrate on the job that you’re trying to do. That was one of the things that were better at West Brom, the set up there allowed me to focus just on the football.”
West Brom replaced Irvine with former Crystal Palace and Stoke City manager Tony Pulis, as they tried to secure their Premier League status.
And Irvine confirmed he left the club on good terms and was confident they would avoid the drop.
“I had a great time and I was obviously disappointed when it came to an end,” he added. “But these things happen.
“The chairman said to me ‘we really appreciate what you’ve done’ and ‘we think the way that you’ve worked is the way we would want a manager to work’.
“But it comes down to small margins, and there were small margins. We just happened to be in a spell where we had a run of very difficult games.
“If you look at the results Tony has had now, there’s not a lot of difference. But I’ve said all along West Brom would be good enough to stay up and I still believe that."
