Richard Beale 'more than happy' to step into West Brom interim role

The club's under-21s boss discovered after a meeting first thing yesterday morning that he would be leading training for the coming days as Albion prepare to face Reading after the decision to axe the 61-year-old.

Experienced coach Beale, 43, will be assisted by first-team coach James Morrison, goalkeeper coach Gary Walsh and academy coach Chris Brunt.

The team will lead preparation at Albion's base in Walsall ahead of the Championship trip to Reading on Saturday, which kicks off the post-Bruce era after the manager was sacked following a nine-match winless run that leaves the Baggies in the drop zone.

Beale, who worked with Bruce during the former's lengthy spell as a coach at Blues, checked in as senior professional development phase manager last summer. He marked his first term in charge of the club's under-23s – which have been re-branded as under-21s across English football this season – with success over rivals Wolves in the final of the PL Cup.

"It's always tough when people lose their jobs but the club have asked me to take it on for however long it is," Beale said when asked about a busy Monday.

"I'll always do that for the club.

"Literally this morning a phone call came in for a meeting and that was probably when the chaps were told.

"I was asked if I could do training for the short-term and I'm more than happy to do that for the club.

"I've worked with the first team at Blues before, with Solihull Moors before, we had a week as joint-caretakers at Blues.

"Training was great, the lads trained very, very well.

"Let's have a good week with them, a positive week and everything at the club is geared towards getting a result on Saturday, that's the aim and what we're trying to do."

Beale, who is a UEFA Pro Licence badge holder, spent 15 years at St Andrew's, mostly as a professional development coach and also had a brief first-team coaching stint, as well as caretaker role.

He left in the summer of 2019 and became youth team manager at Villa, but that role lasted less than a season, until March 2020, when the coach made the switch to National League outfit Solihull Moors, where he was assistant to another former Albion youth boss and caretaker manager Jimmy Shan.

They spent a year with Solihull and Beale took on his new role at Albion in the summer of 2021.

Beale's Albion under-21s are in superb form so far this season and, a few hours having been confirmed as Baggies caretaker boss, the youth coach oversaw his side's latest success – a 5-2 romp of a good Middlesbrough under-21s side at Hednesford Town's Keys Park. The result built on a 6-2 hammering of Villa and 4-0 Watford success in recent weeks.

Reyes Clearly, the exciting hotshot who signed a first professional deal amid intense speculation over the summer before a full senior bow earlier this season, rasped in a superb hat-trick. Rico Richards and Ethan Ingram were also on target as Albion climb to fourth in PL2 Division 2.

Asked if he was pleased with the evening's work, Beale said: "Yes and no, as silly as it sounds. Obviously it's great to win the game but at times it wasn't a classic performance from us.

"It was a tough game at times, they're a good team, but the lads showed a fantastic mentality and dug ourselves back into a game that we made a bit of a poor start in.

"But overall if you score five goals you're happy, on the back of scoring six last week, it's great that we've got forwards scoring loads and playing with loads of confidence.

"We struggled a bit at times on the night and that was disappointing, but that's young players and we're always striving for excellent."

Albion under-21s have won four on the spin and are next in action on Friday week at Norwich City's Carrow Road. They welcome Stoke City and Nottingham Forest to Keys Park on Monday, October 31 and Monday, November 7 respectively.