Ron Atkinson: West Brom must go for cups

The former Baggies boss reckons it will be tricky for Tony Pulis to improve much on last term’s 10th-placed finish.

And Atkinson, who had two spells as manager at The Hawthorns, believes it is in the cup competitions where the best chance of success lies.

“You have a mini league of six at the top, maybe Everton are about to join,” he said.

“Then there is a group containing the likes Southampton, Albion, Leicester, Palace and Stoke who are battling it out behind. I think Albion will be OK. Tony’s thing is ‘we won’t get beat’ and the aim is always to get to 40 points.

“What I would like them to do is target the cup competitions more. The fans know that unless they have a miracle, like Leicester, no-one outside the top group is going to win the league.

“So you say ‘hang on, let’s go for one of the cups’. A lot of the other clubs toss them away too easily. The fans love it. Can you imagine the atmosphere if West Brom went to Wembley?”

Atkinson twice won the FA Cup with Manchester United and claimed the League Cup at both Sheffield Wednesday and Villa. He believes top flight bosses too readily dismiss the benefits of cup success. “Say – for argument’s sake – Albion won the FA Cup. It changes the mindset,” he said. “I will guarantee you now there are players in Leicester’s dressing room who want another trophy.

“I am a great believer that no matter if you are in three or four competitions you should try and win the lot. I don’t understand why teams make wholesale changes. If I was a director and the manager, in a cup competition, deliberately made nine or 10 changes, I would be asking what is going on?

“I still get Villa fans coming up to me now who say it was the best day of their life when we beat Manchester United at Wembley in 1994.”

At the age of 78, Atkinson remains an avid viewer of the Premier League and works at Manchester United home games with the club’s in-house TV channel, MUTV. But he believes the top flight has in recent years lost a little of its edge.

“English supporters love competition and I think the Premier League to a certain extent has become sanitised,” he said.

“When I watch back games from the 80s there was more of an edge. I think the game has lost a little. I’m not on about dirty play but sheer, honest competitiveness.”