West Bromwich Albion head coach Carlos Corberan has warned against high expectations ahead of the return of the Championship schedule.
The Spaniard was brought in as a replacement for Steve Bruce in late October and won the Baggies' final three games before the World Cup break to lead them out of the relegation zone.
Excitement is already growing at The Hawthorns about what Albion could achieve under Corberan, who shocked many by taking Huddersfield Town to the play-off final last season.
The congestion in the Championship this term means that despite being in 21st, West Brom are just eight points away from the top six with a game in hand over the majority of the teams above them.
With optimism that key attacking duo Karlan Grant and Daryl Dike will return when the second tier gets back underway, some supporters will be starting to dream about a Nottingham Forest-esque promotion push.
But speaking to the Express&Star during Albion's warm-weather training camp in Spain, Corberan has warned against high expectations.
He explained: “What I am watching is that an expectation in life never helped anyone.
"I never believe in expectations, what I believe is in facing the situation that life gives you and puts (in front of) you.
“Football is the same, what I’ve been watching and what I like is one level of support and togetherness between the fans and the team.
“That is very, very high because we need to match this support, we need to win for this support from our fans, we need to show to them we want to change the situation and win the games.”
He added: "We want to make them [the fans] feel proud – and of course when you achieve the three points you know the fans will feel proud of the team, it’s exactly what we want.
“But at the same time we know exactly what is our position, our situation in the table, it is still a lot of work to do, a long competition, but we need to keep the mentality to help us be a competitive team.”
West Brom's first game back in the Championship comes away at Sunderland on Monday the 12th of December.
The Verdict
After such a dour start to the season, winning three games on the bounce ahead of the World Cup break gave the Baggies some much-needed momentum but it also naturally raised expectations about what they could achieve this term.
We saw Forest fly up the table in 2021/22 and win promotion to the Premier League so there will be some supporters that look at the Albion squad and believe they can do the same.
In that sense, you can completely understand why it seems Corberan is keen to temper expectations at this early stage.
We saw at Huddersfield that it can take time for him to bed in his ideas properly – the Terriers finished 20th in his first season in charge before kicking on and reaching the play-off final the next year – and that may well be the case at West Brom as well.
