English Premier League in focus: Certainly there is never a dull moment at The Albion

West Bromwich Albion's James Morrison (L) celebrates with team mates after scoring a goal against Tottenham Hotspur during their English Premier League soccer match at White Hart lane in London September 21, 2014.

There must be something about West Bromwich Albion and their penultimate away game of September.


Last year they silenced a stunned Old Trafford with a thoroughly merited 2-1 victory over the then defending champions. Fast forward a year, almost to the day, and they were at it again at the citadel of one of their more illustrious rivals, defeating Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane and, in the process, lifting some of the gloom that has descended on the Hawthorns in the last 12 months.


Plenty of water has passed under the bridge in the meantime. They have changed their manager, twice, appointed a new technical director, terminated the contract of a player for an anti-Semitic gesture and smashed their transfer record. We'll come to Ideye Brown later. In fact, so much has changed that Morgan Amalfitano, who scored one and made one at Old Trafford, is now at West Ham instead of West Brom and scored the winner against Liverpool on Sunday. Still with me?


Loyal and seasoned Baggies fans could certainly be forgiven for struggling to keep up. They would have felt their club, who are often held up as the archetypal yo-yo club, were on the crest of some sustained success after winning at the home of Manchester United for the first time since 1979 in September of last year. They had achieved their best top-flight finish since 1980/81 the previous season under Steve Clarke and had the honour of being the club England recruited the manager from to replace Fabio Capello. In Saido Berahino, they also had one of the most exciting talents in the country. (Is it a coincidence his star has fallen slightly since his pay pocket rocked from £850 per week to five figures?)


But guiding them to their highest ever Premier League finish held little sway with the West Brom board who sacked Clarke in December.


"I feel sorry for the manager," tweeted Youssouf Mulumbu. "It's very harsh," said BBC Sport pundit Alan Shearer.


Indeed it was. And it wasn't as if they they had a replacement lined up. They eventually gave the job to Pepe Mel in a move that seemed borne out of the desire to follow the current trend of appointing a cosmopolitan coach than anything else. The Spaniard had no Premier League experience and had a poor command of English, an appointment therefore as questionable as the expectations of the West Brom board.


How much higher than eighth do they expect their team to finish? And if they can fire a manager months after their best finish in more than 30 years then what chance has the next man got and the man after that, for that matter?


Clarke was relieved of his duties with West Brom two points off the relegation zone with 22 games remaining. The Baggies managed to finish the season three points outside the bottom three. Was the upheaval to the coaching staff and compensation paid out really worth it?


The board abandoned the foreign experiment after four months and went back down the British route in the summer, hiring Alan Irvine as head coach to much surprise. If anyone wanted an indicator of the power Irvine would wield at the Hawthorns and where he would fit in the structure then it came not long after the ink had dried on his contract.


The club broke the record transfer fee they had paid for a player by £3 million to sign Brown, the Nigerian striker, for a reported £10 million and yet Irvine revealed he hadn't seen him play. He wasn't even in the match day squad on Sunday. When a signing is imposed like that and not sanctioned by the guy who picks the team it can lead to a perception that the head coach is a willing puppet.


And it's not as if the recruitment department have the best record in signing strikers, as the combined £12 million shelled out for Victor Anichebe and Stephane Sessegnon proves. They certainly could not be accused of not doing their research on players either: they had Amalfitano watched 17 times over a five-period before even committing to a loan deal.


But, in their defence, they do have the highly-respected Terry Burton as their technical director, a shrewd appointment if ever there was one. Burton is a close friend of England number two Ray Lewington, was in the running to land the England Under-20 job earlier this year and has just finished a two-year spell working with the cream of Arsenal's youngsters.


If Irvine doesn't last the distance, and the odds are sadly stacked against him, then at least the club have the obvious candidate for a caretaker manager in Burton. There is certainly never a dull moment at the Albion, that's for sure.