Jimmy Shan settled into first team role at West Brom
First team coach Jimmy Shan is enjoying the infectious buzz of winning senior games after settling into his new role at Albion.
The 39-year-old was under-23s boss last season before Darren Moore promoted him to the senior team and made him a member of his backroom staff.
It completed a 12-year journey for Shan, who first joined Albion as under-7s coach in 2006.
“I feel I’ve settled into the role,” said Shan. “Having Darren as head coach makes the transition a lot easier.
“Having that relationship with him and understanding how he works has made it a really comfortable.
“It’s a role I’m enjoying. I’ve always said I wanted to operate on the frontline with the extra pressures of the senior game, and I’m loving the buzz that you get from winning.”
Moore has two assistants who he brought in himself, Graeme Jones and Wayne Jacobs. But Shan was promoted from within to help provide continuity and his role is a varied one.
“It all depends on how we divise the session, with the run of games that we’ve had we’ve not had a consistent week to work with the players,” he said.
“When we’ve played on a Saturday, the ones that have been on the bench and the non-starters who have only had a few minutes at the end of of the game, I’ve taken them as a group a few times on a Sunday.
“In the week, Darren leads a lot of the out-of-possession stuff, Graeme leads a lot of in-possession stuff, I float between them.
“We do technical sessions before 11v11s and I tend to work on both of those. And then I’ll offer the centre-forward and attacking players any finishing work they want to do afterwards.
“It’s the first time that I’ve not worked as a lead coach. But doing different things keeps me stimulated. It’s kind of what I’m used to, I’m used to delivering a variety.”
Helping the likes of Dwight Gayle, Jay Rodriguez, Harvey Barnes and Matt Phillips with their finishing, Shan has witnessed first-hand their abilities in front of the net.
“We’ve got some real exciting talent, whatever game and fixture we’re in we always going to pose an attacking threat,” he said.
“We have quality on the ball especially with Dwight and Harvey coming into the building.”
