West Bromwich Albion

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West Bromwich Albion have confirmed Matt Gill will be staying as assistant head coach to boss James Morrison and added Celtic first-team coach Gavin Strachan and former Middlesbrough defender Tony McMahon to the coaching staff.

Gill joined up with the Baggies for the last 11 fixtures of 2025-26, as they went on to secure their Championship survival off the back of a 10-game unbeaten run.

Strachan, 47, has been with the Scottish champions since 2020 after previous assistant manager roles in the EFL with Doncaster and Peterborough.

McMahon, 40, has had previous coaching experience at Scunthorpe United and York City.

Albion also confirmed Boaz Myhill will continue as goalkeeper coach, Leigh Downing will return to his senior role with the Baggies' under-21 team while analyst Damia Abella is leaving after three years.

On Gill's retention, Morrison said it was "great" to have him stay on adding "he's a great coach, I enjoyed working with him last year, the players enjoyed working with him and his efforts were important in us getting over the line".

On the new arrivals, he said: "I'm also delighted to add Gavin Strachan to the group. Having a new pair of eyes from somebody with Gavin's experience will help us massively

"He has worked alongside some top managers, like Martin O'Neill, Ange Postecoglou and Brendan Rodgers, and will no doubt bring fresh ideas with him.

"I know Tony well from our time together at Middlesbrough. He knows me better than anyone in football. He's somebody I trust and whose opinion I've always valued."

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The EFL will reveal its fixture list for the 2026-27 season on Thursday.

Want to know who your team will face on opening day? The fixtures will be announced at 12:00 BST - but that is not all.

The draws for the group stage of the Vertu Trophy and the first round of the Carabao Cup will also take place.

So check back on 25 June to see who your team faces first, last and everything in between.

Stoke City are trying to finalise a deal for West Bromwich Albion's English goalkeeper Josh Griffiths, 24, in a move that would allow the Baggies' England youth international Tommy Simkin, 21, to head back out on loan. (Stoke Sentinel), external

For more transfer news and rumours, read Monday's full gossip column here.

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West Bromwich Albion have signed defender Carter Pinnington on a three-year deal.

The 19-year-old joins from Liverpool, where he has risen through the youth ranks to become a regular part of their under-21s team but has yet to make his senior debut.

He will join the Baggies' under-21 set-up for the immediate future.

"I'm extremely grateful to be joining Albion," Pinnington said in a club statement.

"I had offers from other clubs, but from the very first conversations I had here, it was clear to me that this was the right place for the next stage of my career and an opportunity I couldn't turn down."

The teenager is a former England Under-18 international.

Nizaar Kinsella
Chelsea reporter

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West Brom are progressing talks to sign striker Jimmy‑Jay Morgan from Chelsea on a permanent deal.

The 20-year-old is expected to leave Stamford Bridge, with his contract due to expire next year, for a fee that could rise to £4m includes a substantial sell-on clause.

A move to the Championship would follow an impressive loan spell at League One side Peterborough United, where he scored 12 goals and provided three assists in 34 league appearances.

Morgan joined Chelsea in 2022 as a 17-year-old from Southampton for an initial £3m.

He is highly regarded, having represented England at youth level up to the under-20s, and has also previously spent time on loan at Gillingham.

Chris Hall
Fan writer

On Friday, West Bromwich Albion revealed their released and retained list, and the announcement caused a few eyebrows to be raised in the Baggies fanbase.

Of course, not every name on the list was a shock. Jed Wallace's release was sad but not surprising.

The club captain may be a stalwart of 140 league games for the Throstles, but it's the right call.

Wallace missed half the season through injury and, at 32, it would be fair to assume those issues are only likely to get worse, not better.

While Daryl Dike is six and a half years Wallace's junior, he too carried too much risk to be renewed.

Many, myself included, made a case for the big American striker to stay. His committed demeanour on the pitch and his downright lovable personality off it had every Baggie desperate for him to succeed.

But, after four and a half years and only 22 league starts, it was a clear matter of heart ruling head to campaign for him to be given a new contract.

One player who has made a compelling case to stay is goalkeeper Max O'Leary.

In a season where Joe Wildsmith and Josh Griffiths racked up some horrendous shot-stopping statistics that went a long way to plunging Albion into relegation trouble, O'Leary offered the antidote to those ills.

He finished the season in credit in terms of goals prevented, a stat where his predecessors had been heavily in debt, and racked up an incredible eight clean sheets in 16 games.

Albion had only managed seven in 28 games before he arrived.

Little surprise then that the 29-year-old goalkeeper has been offered a new deal.

But there was more of a mixed reception to the fact that deals have been put in front of Josh Maja and Karlan Grant.

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From a fitness perspective, I get some of the concerns.

Grant started just 17 games last season - fewer than the released Wallace (although he is also four years younger than the skipper).

The 14 games for which Grant was unavailable due to injury this season is more than he's missed through injury in the previous five years of his Albion career.

At just 28, it's easy to believe this level of absence won't be repeated.

Maja, too, lacked starts (just 15 to be precise), but this wasn't due to injury.

Instead, it was down to the then manager Ryan Mason who seemed to believe the forward didn't warrant a place in his starting XI.

That decision was exposed somewhat when James Morrison gave Maja six starts at the back end of the season and was duly rewarded with three goals.

It's hardly surprising when you look at the stats.

In the past two seasons, Maja has not scored once in the league when coming off the bench.

Yet in 41 league starts, in the same period, he has returned an impressive 16 goals.

That record probably goes some way to explain James Morrison's desire to keep the Nigerian striker.

For the reasons behind the efforts to retain Grant, you must dig a little deeper. However, a dip into the data justifies that call too.

Grant is one of the best forwards in the league for ball recoveries in the final third, successful dribbles per 90 and touches in the opposition box. He is also very rarely dribbled past.

In short, Grant is a wide man who works very hard, advances his team up the pitch, presses opposition defenders and looks after his full-back.

While these are not the things that will always catch the eye of spectators, trust me when I tell you that coaches and managers notice and value them.

Add to that the fact that Albion are already light in attacking areas, and retaining players is almost always cheaper than recruiting them, suddenly our retained list starts to make a lot of sense.

However, at the time of writing, none of Grant, O'Leary, nor Maja has signed on the dotted line.

Wanting to keep them is one thing - doing so is something else entirely.

Steve Hermon
BBC Radio WM's West Bromwich Albion commentator

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Albion have "acknowledged" rather than accepted the publication of the independent Club Football Reporting Panel's (CFRP) written reasons for the points deduction.

There is clear frustration from the club over the timeline of events. That is understandable, as is their decision not to appeal and their desire to move on after they, in their own words "settled it on the pitch".

The club submitted its annual accounts on 3 December yet it took 112 days for a compliance report to be issued. That meant the punishment came in the final days of the season after a swift video conference hearing.

That timing was far from ideal for all parties involved — including Albion's relegation rivals at the time.

The written reasons reveal Albion argued that, if a sporting sanction was to be handed down, it should be suspended until the start of the 2026-27 season because of the delay.

The club also highlighted the "tireless" efforts of owner Shilen Patel in reducing losses. When he arrived, they were projected to exceed the three-year P&S limit of £39m by around £30m. In the end, the breach stood at just under £1.97m — the smallest ever recorded across the Premier League or second tier.

It is notable that Albion's engagement with the governing body was judged only as "reasonable" and therefore not worthy of a point being given back for co-operation. That's despite Patel's Bilkul group working to a business plan in conjunction with the EFL ever since completing their takeover in February 2024.

The written reasons do, however, acknowledge the club did not act in bad faith.

Rather than holding on to prized assets to push higher up the Championship, which would have risked a more serious breach, Albion sold the likes of Torbjorn Heggem and Tom Fellows in an attempt to comply.

Those decisions had a detrimental on-field impact, contributing to their slide into a relegation battle only avoided by a remarkable run of form under James Morrison.

Outside of their legal representatives, no EFL official attended the remote hearing.

The independent CFRP did hear evidence from Patel though, as well as executive director Mark Miles, Rob Lake of the Albion Foundation and former Stoke City and Bristol City executive John Pelling. He was brought in by the Baggies for his football finance expertise.

The panel sided with the EFL on most decisions.

One of the key arguments centred on recharging £5.2m in interest on a loan to parent company Bilkul rather than the football club. The CFRP rejected Albion's case, viewing responsibility for the loan as a "direct and natural consequence" of the takeover — a decision that effectively added £5.2m to the club's losses.

Patel has invested tens of millions to clean up the mess he inherited, including the MSD loan, so in one sense he can feel hard done by. It was taken out before his arrival to keep the club afloat.

But the American businessman did tell me in an interview in March 2024 that he came into the situation with "eyes wide open". The lesson is a harsh one, reflected in the EFL's claim the recharge was "an illegitimate attempt to rewrite history".

The club's major point of contention was what it viewed as a retrospective change in the interpretation of community development expenditure. Albion's in-kind contributions to the Albion Foundation were accepted as genuine but — apart from £86,061 — just over £2m claimed as a "community add-back" was disallowed.

The CFRU admits it made a "new and different decision" when it looked again at previously submitted accounts for 2023-24.

According to the written reasons, the unit says it was "obliged" to look again but the Baggies argue in-kind benefits had previously been accepted as being exempt from P&S calculations.

The written reasons also claim the unit didn't know until February 2026 that the club's accounts for 2024-25 didn't include in-kind benefits as part of their losses and that this was new information.

In a season that also saw sanctions for Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday, alongside Southampton's ongoing 'spygate' controversy, the EFL clearly has its hands full. However, differing interpretations of complex rules and the contrasting time taken for decisions to be reached do not appear helpful to anyone.

Clubs are due to vote on a new squad cost ratio model, which will better align the EFL with the Premier League, League One and League Two. Hopefully it proves to be less complicated but for Albion their priority now is looking forward.

As their statement put it, they have "closed the chapter" on one of the most stressful periods of the club's history — and are confident the future will not bring a repeat.

Chris Hall
Fan writer

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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.

Most supporters felt a season-ending injury to creator-in-chief, Mikey Johnston, in that game at the Kassam would spell doom for Albion's season; quite the opposite.

It allowed Morrison to go with a more robust and, at times, narrower midfield in which Isaac Price enjoyed his own redemption arc playing in his (in my opinion) best position off the left, and it allowed Albion to go two up top, with more defence-minded midfielders behind them.

A front two simply isn't that fashionable anymore, and it was something Mason had avoided as he didn't seem to fancy any of his strikers bar one.

Aune Heggebo had started Ryan Mason's last 11 league games in charge and only failed to start twice under Eric Ramsay.

Morrison, however, decided to share the load much more up front, rotating three different strikers in Heggebo, Maja and Dike.

Maja had been anonymous under the previous two bosses, scoring just one league goal all season, but he also had been shown very little faith, making just six league starts before Morrison was put in charge.

Suddenly trusted under the interim boss, he was a player transformed, starting seven matches and scoring three goals in Albion's last nine games.

Similar was true of Daryl Dike.

Ryan Mason had granted him just 31 minutes of league football in five months.

Morrison started him in three of Albion's last five games...he duly scored twice.

In all honesty, the list could go on.

Ousmane Diakite didn't miss a minute of Albion's last eight league games, racking up man-of-the-match awards on a near-weekly basis. He'd been derided by much of the fanbase for much of the season prior to that.

Nat Phillips and George Campbell formed a rock-solid partnership, with the former having been culpable for many defensive errors earlier in the campaign and the latter having been misguidedly used at right back for much of the season.

He was replaced at right back by Danny Imray, whose loan looked like it was over before it started when he was substituted after 45 minutes on debut at Portsmouth. He went on to be one of Albion's most important players in the closing weeks of the season.

In the end, it was a season where many redeemed themselves both on the pitch and off it.

Our ownership recovered from some incredibly bad football decisions to (finally) appoint the right man and expertly guide us through an incredibly challenging final few weeks.

However, after the redemption arc needs to come the next chapter, and we must hope that our excellent finish to the season (final day aside) gives us a platform to build upon.

James Morrison said after the final day defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, "In defeat you learn a lot, and I've learned a lot today."

That's a humble and reflective approach which the club should take to the 2025-26 season.

Many mistakes were made, and that presents an opportunity to learn from them and come back stronger.

Because nobody connected to West Bromwich Albion wants history to repeat itself.

Listen to more from Chris Hall at the Albion Analysis, external

"I think it will be interesting to see what he [Morrison] brings in and how we are going to play next year."

BBC Radio WM's West Bromwich Albion commentator Steve Hermon is joined by former Baggies midfielder Richard Sneekes and fans to look back on a difficult season for the club and assess the turnaround under new boss James Morrison.

Listen to the full season review on BBC Sounds

Listen to more West Bromwich Albion content on BBC Sounds

Steve Hermon
BBC Radio WM

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The debate over West Bromwich Albion's out‑of‑contract players depends on whether you're thinking with your heart or your head.

The heart will tell you Jed Wallace should be offered a new deal because of how important the captain is in the dressing room and on the training ground.

When lesser characters have hidden, Wallace has stepped up in public, speaking to me on multiple occasions during one of the toughest 12 months in the club's history.

He has also been a model professional in the community, supporting several Albion Foundation initiatives, which are part of his responsibilities as skipper.

However, the head suggests it may be time to move on.

Wallace is now 32 and on a very good wage after arriving on a free from Millwall in 2022. While he played a key role in Albion's upturn when James Morrison switched to a 4‑4‑2 availability has been an issue.

The winger has started just 17 games over the past two seasons. His latest calf problem ruled him out of the final seven matches, aside from a two‑minute cameo on the last day at Sheffield Wednesday, which marked his 150th appearance for the club.

Injuries are also the reason why the head argues it could be time to cut ties with Daryl Dike.

The striker was incredibly unfortunate to suffer Achilles ruptures in separate incidents, but his fitness has restricted him to just 68 appearances and 11 goals in four and a half years. He is also on good money, and if he were to break down again a new deal would be a huge regret.

But the heart wonders whether those worries are behind him. Dike significantly increased his game time under Morrison and played his part in the team's 10‑game unbeaten run to secure safety.

There is also the infectious personality behind the scenes, and the moment of pure emotion when he scored at Preston - one of the few genuine highlights of a difficult season.

If a deal can be agreed on reduced terms, the 25‑year‑old may yet stay, although he might favour a fresh start elsewhere.

Wages are also central to decisions on Karlan Grant and Josh Maja. The latter has coasted through too many games this campaign and, despite flashes of the talent that saw him bag 12 goals in the first six months of the 2024-25 season before injury ended it early, he has not shown enough effort to justify a new contract.

Grant's status is trickier. He is more respected internally for his attitude than by supporters, and his quality was missed during his most recent injury absence.

However, having joined the club when they were in the Premier League, the 28‑year‑old is on a salary the Baggies can no longer justify.

Then there are the goalkeepers. Joe Wildsmith is the easiest call. Signed on a free in the summer of 2024 as back‑up to Alex Palmer, he was handed an opportunity after the academy graduate's January move to Ipswich last year.

He failed to grasp it, making a string of costly errors and ended the season on loan at Middlesbrough.

After Josh Griffiths' confidence suffered following multiple mistakes this season, Max O'Leary arrived on a short‑term deal from Bristol City vin January.

Despite an error on debut at Derby, the Republic of Ireland international went on to keep eight clean sheets, including five in a row.

Some have concerns over his height, but he has good Championship experience, his shot‑stopping is excellent and Albion would be wise to keep him.