Carlos Corberan sat down in front of the WBA TV cameras at the start of the first full week of pre-season to discuss a number of important topics.
The boss was quizzed on the club’s pre-season schedule, the trip to St. George’s Park, the changes to the senior management structure over the summer, his relationship with Head of Football Operations Ian Pearce, the transfer strategy, the four desired key characteristics for potential new arrivals, Dara O’Shea’s departure and his determination to help the club make positive steps forward.
Here's what Carlos had to say on…
His summer break...
"I think it’s always important to find the right balance at the end of the season and during the summer.
"It’s nice to spend time with the people who you couldn’t give all of your time to before because of the demands of the season, such as my wife, my son and my family.
"It was nice to spend time with them and recover a full energy for what hopefully will be an amazing season in front of us."
The first few days of pre-season and seeing the staff and his squad...
"I have spent a lot of time organising the schedule. In the summer, you’ll always have new ideas that you want to implement throughout the campaign and I’ve been organising how we do that.
"It’s important to have plenty of communication with the staff about what the new ideas are and how we are going to modify things.
"We are going to be organised for the season ahead and we’ll be communicating our ideas to the players on the training pitches and in the analysis room.
"The players are re-establishing the dynamics of training and in some moments the technical and physical demands are more important than the tactical messages. We will give them the tactical messages little by little.
"The first few days have gone very well."
The changes at the club within the management structure...
"First of all, I would like to thank Ron Gourlay for the work that he was doing here with us in the club.
"The fact that I am here at the club is part of his decision because I was having meetings with him and Ian Pearce before I arrived.
"I need to thank him for his determination to bring me to West Bromwich Albion and he made me very proud to be here.
"However, in life, you have to adapt to different situations. Football is exactly the same. We need to adapt to the new challenges and the new scenario.
"Ron left, and Mark is the replacement. Mark, for me, is very important because he is someone from inside the club and someone who knows the values of our club very well. He has been working for close to 20 years in the club and he knows what it means to be a West Bromwich Albion fan and support the club.
"He’ll know every detail of the club perfectly.
"I’ll keep working closely with Ian Pearce and that’s important because it gives us stability in the project and in the idea that we developed seven months ago.
"It’s a pity to not have Ron as part of the process anymore, but at the same time, we have someone in Mark who I know will support the work I do with Ian.
"We need to make everything work well."
The decisions that have been made regarding player arrivals and departures...
"We need to adapt to the situation of the club, and the situation of the club right now is different to the situation of the club in the previous year.
"The most important thing is to know what our financial possibilities are. Your financial possibilities determine which market you can enter into.
"I understand the priorities of the club and the priorities right now are to add some new players to the squad.
"I also understand that some players who have been part of the club for a few seasons are not going to stay for the next one, and Dara O’Shea is an example of that. I understand that these things are going to happen.
"Some players will join us and be part of our amazing club for the next season. These situations are always going to happen.
"The club has always been very honest with me about the financial possibilities and this is something I really appreciate. The fact the financial possibilities are different just increases our challenge and our motivation to create a competitive squad, which is what everyone involved with the club wants."
Dara O’Shea’s departure...
"I wish Dara success and happiness in his future career. He has been a very, very special player for this club.
"He will be in the heart of every fan because every time he put on the shirt he gave everything and played at 100 per cent.
"He is an example of what we need to do. The club recruited him for previous seasons and not from the highest level. The club was working with him and improving him. He has made an amazing contribution for the situation of the club.
"Dara is an example of the type of profile of player we want to have in the club. A player who has been in the lower leagues or maybe non-league football, to arrive to play minutes in the Premier League with our club.
"Of course, we wish Dara all the best. It was an agreement which worked for both parts."
The type of player he and Ian Pearce have discussed recruiting...
"We have created four criteria for new signings. For me, it’s very important that every player we bring in meets the criteria.
"One, is the quality. To be a football player and a West Bromwich Albion player you have to have quality, but in this club the supporters like their team to be dominant and to be protagonists with the ball.
"This is a feeling I have about how to play to football, so the quality is an important skill that they all need to have.
"Another important skill is the desire. They need to have ambition and desire to improve and help their team improve.
"I want them to have the desire to give their best for the fans and for the club. It’s another important value.
"Another one for me is energy. In football, you need energy to compete. You need to have the energy to show the other skills such as the quality and the desire every few days.
"Another important value is personality. It’s not easy to play in our stadium full of people. You have to have personality to be able to deal with that.
"This season, having big personality is going to make a massive difference because we are going to play in some very, very big stadiums against tough opponents. You need to have the personality to show the desire, the skills, the energy and ambition that you have.
"For me, we have these four criteria which are very important. It’s not easy to find all of these things and you need to make sure you are carrying out good searches.
"I strongly believe in Ian Pearce and his people to put names on the table of players who meet the criteria."
The excitement of conducting a full pre-season and implementing his ideas...
"It’s very important for me to have this period of time because when I arrived here I had just three days before the first game.
"In the previous year we had the FIFA World Cup in the international break which meant we could work with the players and spend time with them. Now, in this pre-season, we have an even longer period of time.
"As a coach, I like that a lot to have the possibility to do this because it will allow me the chance to pass information to the coaches and the players.
"We have been working for seven months together, so I think this time will be useful because they know me well and I know them well now.
"It’s a time we need to utilise in terms of adding new possibilities to the squad. As a coach, it’s always nice to have the new players added as quickly as possible, but I also understand that we can’t control the timings of the market.
"We need to have some flexibility about what we would like because I would like to the spend the next six weeks with the squad that we are going to have for the full season, but we know that this is not easy.
"We have to wait for some of the players for some weeks more, but it’s always positive for the coach, for the players and for the group to spend time together without the demands of the competition.
The trip to St. George’s Park and what he hopes to get out of that visit...
"I always say there’s no better place to be working in the summer period than here in England. The temperature in the summer is the best you can find because you’ll have some sunny days and you’ll have some rainy days too, which means you have the same conditions as you have during the Championship season.
"It’s a moment to use the facilities at St. George’s Park and here at our training ground. Now is the moment when everything is new, such as the new grass on the pitch and the best weather conditions.
"After spending a couple of weeks here, we are going to St. George’s Park to use maybe the best facilities in the country. We will spend some time together there.
"We are giving a little bit of time to see if we can add some of the new players and then spend time together there, at St. George’s Park.
"It’s not just the football perspective we will be working on, but the human perspective too. Some of the players are going to be new and they’ll need to fight together in the competition, so they’ll be creating a new family and new relationships.
"They are going to be together every day, just like they’ll be together every game out on the football pitch. We want to create this togetherness and we understand that one week in one of the best facilities in the country can help us a lot to develop the ideas that we want to develop during pre-season."
The pre-season friendlies scheduled and how much importance he places on them...
"The games of pre-season help us evaluate many of the important things that we will need in the season.
"We’ll evaluate the progress of the players, how they are both physically and technically, if they are taking on information correctly and quickly, if they are adapting to different scenarios well, if certain players need more training in certain areas and which ideas are working and which ideas aren’t, which of course we’ll need to find solutions for.
"In addition, we are going to be watching the new generation of West Bromwich Albion players because we have some talents in the academy who I will be forcing to be part of our pre-season matches with the senior team.
"In the new challenge and situation for the club, the academy has to have an important part to play. The academy players can be the future of the club.
"Players who have previously been in the under-21 team can be part of the first team in pre-season and it’s up to them to show us that they are ready.
"Maybe we can find a player from the academy who can help the club cover one position instead of having to go to the market.
"The adaptation of the ideas we have and the physical conditioning are two of the key aspects that we will be watching in pre-season training and in the friendly matches that we will play."
His determination to keep improving the squad and to help drive the club forward...
"The only thing that I can say is that my level of commitment in my work is going to be the maximum level I can make, which is exactly what I was doing last year.
"I am going to make sure I watch everything to ensure we improve in areas where we could’ve done better last season.
"This is my mentality and this is the mentality I want to see in every single person who works at the training ground. A self-improving mentality is key. I want us to keep progressing and make this club the best club that we can make it.
"I know that our fans understand the situation, but I know that they will accept the situation when they are watching a side which is giving the best that they can give.
"I will be sure that we do this because nobody can ask anymore of us than that."
