Matt Maher: Lengthy search will be quickly forgotten if Tony Mowbray is a success on West Brom return

It is why, should Tony Mowbray be the huge success everyone at Albion hopes he will be on his return to The Hawthorns more than 15 years after leaving for Celtic, the name Raphael Wicky will be long forgotten.

The collapse of the Baggies’ move for the latter earlier in the week felt a rather awkward episode for Bilkul Football and particularly the club’s sporting director Andrew Nestor, who has been leading the search for Carlos Corberan’s replacement and had identified the former Young Boys boss as the No.1 candidate.

When it also emerged just 24 hours later star striker Josh Maja will miss around two months through injury a sense of gloom around B71 was growing.

That has now evaporated thanks to the appointment of Mowbray, a man who remains revered by a significant portion of the fanbase and who may - in what is a decently-stocked field - be the club’s most popular manager of the last two decades.

The fact he will be returning not only to The Hawthorns but also to work after beating bowel cancer only adds to the romance. Over the next few months he has the chance to write one of the most heart-warming football stories.

If you were being cynical, you might wonder if this is an appointment driven too much by sentimentality, a move made to quell any discontent at a managerial search which appeared methodical but then a little messy when talk with Wicky fell through.

Yet while lifting the mood of the fanbase might undoubtedly be a by-product of choosing Mowbray, an examination of the facts suggests this was less a decision motivated by emotion than merely the next logical step in the process.

We know, for instance, Mowbray was on Albion’s final three-man shortlist along with Wicky and Rene Hake, the former Manchester United assistant. All three were interviewed at length which meant, when the move for Wicky fell through, it was never a case of the Baggies being back to square one. 

The notion three weeks had been “wasted” in a failed pursuit of the Swiss was pure social media hysteria. Granted, he had emerged as the preferred candidate but the work Nestor and recruitment chief Ian Pearce had done in reaching that point had not been wasted. They already had a far clearer view of their options than when Corberan departed shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve. 

Had they followed the Wicky disappointment by moving in a completely different direction, it might have hinted at uncertainty in their method. Instead, they simply went back to their original list. 

It is quite possible Mowbray was always the most attractive option but initially the timing wasn’t quite right. As recently as this week, the 61-year-old was still waiting for the medical all-clear. Those lingering doubts about his health, at the time Albion were conducting initial interviews and in the timescale of the appointment process, could not be discounted. Yet when the deal for Wicky collapsed, suddenly it made sense to wait just a couple more days to see whether Mowbray was fit enough to take the job. Once that was confirmed, talks over the shape of the deal could begin in earnest.

Mowbray made clear in November his determination to return to work, though must realise he will face inevitable questions about his health at his unveiling.

Albion must hope he can have the same impact as first time around, albeit nearly two decades have passed since he first set foot through the door. 

Back in October 2006, the Baggies were just a few months removed from the Premier League. Now it is four years and though Bilkul’s takeover last February might have averted financial Armageddon, whoever took the job knew they would be working on a tight budget with the club having to tread carefully to avoid breaching profit and sustainability rules. The 2023-24 accounts, due out a couple of months from now, are not expected to make pleasant reading.

Yet since leaving The Hawthorns, Mowbray has hardly been unaccustomed to working with certain restraints and in tricky environments. At Blackburn he engineered a promotion from League One, re-established them in the Championship. Then he took Sunderland to the play-offs. His spell at Blues might have been cut short due to illness but rare are the occasions he has left a club in a worse place than he found it. 

There is a strong argument to be made Mowbray’s first spell in charge helped lay the foundations for the club’s most successful period in recent year history and an eight-year stay in the Premier League. At the very least, he signed two modern day legends in Chris Brunt and James Morrison, pillars of the Baggies team for the next decade.

His appointment now will end a three-and-a-half week search. It might not have gone entirely smoothly but all that really matters is the outcome. 

The history of football is littered with “happy accidents” where the pursuit of a top candidate has fallen through to the eventual benefit of the club. For the best recent example around these parts, see Thierry Henry choosing Monaco over Villa in 2018, allowing Dean Smith into the latter hotseat. 

The following year, Albion chose Slaven Bilic as boss the following year following a lengthy search, which included former Wolfsburg coach Bruno Labbadia being interviewed twice. 

Bilic promptly took the Baggies back to the top flight 12 months later, at which point no-one was talking about the circumstances which saw him get the job in the first place.