Gary Megson has his management fire rekindled at West Brom
Gary Megson admits the management bug is back, but still refuses to say whether he would like to succeed Tony Pulis in The Hawthorns hotseat.
The 58-year-old guided a resurgent Albion to a 1-1 draw with Tottenham at Wembley on Saturday and is due to be given a second game against Newcastle on Tuesday.
The midweek game and Saturday’s performance has persuaded Albion’s board to stick with Megson for now so preparation for the Newcastle match is not disrupted.
Albion were not considering him at the start of their search, but if should he turn form around drastically, he could become a potential candidate.
“I have never said I want the West Brom job,” confirmed Megson, who twice guided the Baggies to the Premier League when in charge between 2000 and 2004. “What I have said is that this – not just these last few days but going back into football – has whetted my appetite for it.
“If a job came along that I would fancy (then yes). I’m not going to traipse up and down the country trying to get a job, but I’m certainly more enthusiastic about getting back into management if I could do.
“I enjoyed being on that touchline, I think I’m good at it. But the 90 minutes has made no difference for myself, it’s up to the board to decide what they’re doing.
“Who knows how long an interim period is? If I’m involved in that game on Tuesday they’ll get my best.”
Megson also revealed how he spoke to Pulis in the build-up to Saturday’s draw – but did not ask for advice.
“I’ve spoken to Tony a lot of times,” he told Sky Sports on Saturday. “I spoke to him today at 2.20pm just to see what he was doing, but in terms of input, if that was the case, Tony could have just stayed and kept the job and carried on!”
“I’ve been with him now for the last four months, and we’re not suddenly going to change everything, we can’t, we haven’t got a big enough squad, we didn’t have enough time, and it would be a little bit disrespectful to say: ‘OK, whatever we’ve been doing for the last dozen games, we’re going to do something different.’
“There were maybe one or two tweaks, but nothing majorly different. Today we had a lot of good performances from players.”
