West Bromwich Albion have just recorded their best ever finish in the top flight, ending the season in 8th place. They went off to strong start under new boss Steve Clark and managed to hang on to their top ten spot in spite of a drop in form late on in the season. New Baggies boss Steve Clark signed keeper Ben Foster and Argentinian defensive midfield Claudio Yacob. Both performed well throughout the season but it was the loan signing of Romelu Lukaku that proved a masterstroke from Clark. The Belgian imposed himself as the fulcrum in the attack, ending up with 17 goals. Shane Long, James Morrison and, to a lesser degree, Chris Brunt and Peter Odemwingie also contributed well in the attack while the ever solid Olsonn and McAuley kept good watch at the back. Other summer signings Goran Popov, Yacine El Ghanassy and Marcus Rosenberg had little impact as Clark relied heavily on the set up he inherited from his predecessor. Roy Hogdson had left a club in rude health to take up the England job and Clark takes the credit from improving on Hodgson’s 10th place finish. Liam Ridgewell and Steven Reid started the season at full backs, with Mulumbu and Yacob developing a good partnership in the defensive midfield roles. Young Billy Jones showed maturity beyond his years to take up the right back role after Reid went down with an injury. Zoltan Gera was ruled out with a season-ending injury early in the campaign but it seemed that nothing could go wrong for the Baggies in the opening stages of the season when they kept pace with the top four nearly until Christmas. They started of with a 3-0 win at home against Liverpool and peaked in November when an impressive run of four straight wins saw them reach third place. The Baggies had a tough winter, losing seven out of 12 league games either side of Christmas and dropping out of both cup competitions. Peter Odemwingie effectively ruled himself out of the second part of the season when he tried to force a deadline day move to QPR by publicly criticising the club, which eventually backfired on him. Steve Clark could probably have done with some reinforcement in transfer window to cover for a number of injuries in all lines. He had to wait till mid February to record his first win of 2013 at Anfield, quickly followed by a home win against Sunderland to get back in the right direction. They had reached the 40-point mark in late February but after that, they were looking over their shoulders. With little cover at the back and Jonas Olsonn struggling with his form, the Baggies huffed and puffed in the final two months of the campaign. They only got two wins in the final straight but still managed still to hang to eighth place on 49 points.
