33-year-old named alongside Ryan Mason in race to become West Brom boss | OneFootball

Reports suggest that the chase for the vacant West Brom manager's job is now down to two, with a new name having been thrown into the ring.

The race for the vacant managerial position at West Bromwich Albion is now down to two, with hot favourite Ryan Mason having been joined by the former Manchester United and Chelsea coach Eric Ramsay, according to reports.

West Brom sacked Tony Mowbray on the 21st April, following a 3-1 home defeat to Derby County which effectively ended their last remaining chances of securing a play-off place at the end of the season.

James Morrison took over as interim manager for their final two games, but the hunt has been on since then for a replacement for Mowbray, who'd only been in the position for three months himself after having only appointed in January himself as a replacement for Carlos Corberan, who left just before Christmas to take up the vacant position at Valencia.

Ryan Mason remains the favourite for the vacant Albion job; Ramsay's name also linked

The former Spurs player Mason remains the favourite for the West Brom position. Talks are believed to be continuing, while Mason weighs up whether to leave his coaching position at Europa League winners Tottenham Hotspur.

But Birmingham World reported this morning that there is a new possible contender, the former Chelsea coach Eric Ramsay, and that the field for the vacant managerial position at The Hawthorns has now been whittled down to these two. They report that the "idea of becoming West Brom’s new boss has been floated to Ramsay directly".

Ramsay is a highly-rated coach with friends in high places

Ramsay has been earning rave reviews as the manager of MLS side Minnesota United, most notably when his team demolished Lionel Messi's Inter Miami 4-1 in a League match in May. His team are currently in third place in the MLS Western Conference.

Ramsay has been with the club since February, and ended their 2024 season by taking them into the end-of-season MLS play-offs, where they reached the semi-finals before losing to LA Galaxy. But this season has seen an improvement on the last, including an eight-game unbeaten run which only ended with a defeat to Western Conference leaders Vancouver Whitecaps.

Ramsay, 33, started out working at Loughborough University alongside Kieran McKenna, before working as an academy coach at Swansea City and Shrewsbury Town. He moved to Chelsea in 2019, where he became the youngest ever British coach to earn a UEFA Pro Licence for coaching.

He left Chelsea for Manchester United in 2021 to work as their set-piece coach, and was described as their "secret weapon". Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who persuaded Ramsay to leave Stamford Bridge for Old Trafford, described him as a "young, fresh and an innovative coach".

Whether Ramsay can be tempted back to England may come down to the small matter of job security. Only he will know whether it's worth taking the chance of leaving a secure MLS job where he has been successful in order to start afresh at a Championship club who have gone through six permanent managers in the last six years.

If he decides that it is, the vacant managerial position at West Brom may not be quite Mason's just yet.