Ally Robertson: I hope Slaven Bilic tells us exactly what he thinks
I think Slaven Bilic could be a great fit for Albion. He strikes me as one of those managers who says what he feels.
I doubt he’s going to hold back, either in the dressing room or the press room, and I hope he doesn’t.
Hopefully he’ll shake things up a bit. It’s essential any new manager brings in new ideas that freshen things up, otherwise the training ground can go stale.
Johnny Giles did it when I was playing, so did Big Ron.
One thing I’d like Bilic to change straight away is to abandon the previous insistence on playing out from the back.
There’s a time and a place for playing that way, but you need to have the players, and even then you can’t do it all the time.
It’s important for the club to back Bilic this summer, and not just financially. They need to give him what he wants, and let him get on with it.
If that’s the case, he won’t be able to have any complaints if he doesn’t deliver the results.
The board have confirmed the owner won’t be putting any more money in, so we’ve got to be shrewd this summer. Unfortunately, in the modern game, if you’ve got money you’ve got a chance.
Hopefully Bilic’s reputation will enable us to pick up a few more quality loan players.
It’s a short-term strategy but I’m OK with that if it gets us back up. Once you’re in the Premier League, you can build from there.
The rebuild has already started to gather pace with Craig Dawson leaving for Watford.
It makes sense to sell him because he could leave for free at the end of next season.
The same is true of Salomon Rondon.
In a perfect world, I would like to see him stay, score 20 goals in the Championship and fire us back up.
If he did that, you wouldn’t mind him leaving for free next summer. But unfortunately, he probably won’t be in the right shape of mind to do that.
As long as the money we get for Rondon is reinvested into the squad to give Bilic what he wants, that’s all we can ask for.
It may have to be spread out on a few signings, because we’ve got a small squad at the moment.
Hopefully a few more of the kids can step up next season and help plug the gap, but much will depend on what Bilic gets in the transfer market.
