The metropolitan and ceremonial county of West Midlands – not to be confused with the West Midlands or the West Midlands, according to Wikipedia – is where you’ll find the settlements of Birmingham, Coventry, Solihull, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell.

In other words it is the finest, proudest, handsomest, bestest metropolitan and ceremonial county on the entire face of the planet.

That is a fact that cannot be disputed with any credibility, so obvious and ironclad is its veracity.

The football clubs of the West Midlands are perhaps less convincing.

While the area has historical significance in the game and a baffling level of depth both in terms of the vast span of levels on offer and the length of the roots that twist and turn off into the lower reaches of non-league, the modern impact of the West Midlands’ professional clubs is limited.

But, at times in the season just gone, it seemed as if most of them were on an upward trajectory.

It didn’t end up that way for all of the clubs in Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and the surrounding areas, but the area remains, I think, a pretty interesting little hotspot of the sport.

With that in mind, where do each of the West Midlands clubs stand in the football wasteland between 2024/25 and 2025/26?

Let’s explore.

Aston Villa

The highest-ranked club in the West Midlands is also its hardest to gauge at the end of 2024/25. Where others succeeded or failed or something in between, Villa did all three at once.

They missed out on a Champions League return in the most gut-wrenching fashion, imploding at the final hurdle and given an unhelpful nudge over the precipice by a devastating technical refereeing error at Old Trafford in the last Premier League match of the season.

By the expectations set out at the start of the season by supporters of a team who just had qualified for the Champions League this time last year, missing out this time certainly means they’ve fallen short.

But it has to mean something that they progressed all the way to the quarter-finals by way of famous home wins against Bayern Munich and Celtic among other significant Champions League milestones.

Villa supporters might feel like they’re settling for the Europa League in 2025/26 but to maintain a European place at the same time as enjoying the thrilling path they walked in the top competition this season is no mean feat.

The season ended with an immediate sense of disappointment. Villa had a return to the Champions League within their reach and fluffed their lines. They reached the semi-final of the FA Cup and failed to turn up against Crystal Palace at Wembley.

It was, in the end, a season of what might have been. But the season it was can be celebrated too if the club can make a success of both domestic and European football next season.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

The highest of the three West Midlands league sides to change their managers this season, Wolves would most likely have avoided Premier League relegation regardless by virtue of not being Southampton, Leicester City or Ipswich Town. But they wouldn’t have brought in Vítor Pereira.

They were never really among the worst three teams in the top division but Wolves seemed to find ways of tying themselves in knots under Gary O’Neil. Questions were raised – by me, for one – about the emotional and financial investment of owners Fosun International.

Wolves have already lost Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït-Nouri doesn’t seem to be too far behind. Fosun’s response in the transfer market this summer will reveal a lot about their active commitment to the club but Pereira’s ability to improve the team on the pitch and connect with supporters on a cultural level gave the club a significant lift in the meantime.

A season total of 42 points can hardly be considered an unqualified success but splitting Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League table after a sticky first half of the season isn’t bad going.

O’Neil might have pointed to the degree of difficulty when it came to Wolves’ first eight games. They picked up a single point in that period but played all seven teams who ended up qualifying for Europe through the league.

The next run of four defeats was rather more alarming and led to O’Neil’s departure. His successor produced six consecutive league wins in March and April, demonstrated a keen taste for a pint, and got the season back on track.

What happens next term is anyone’s guess. Like Villa, the short-term future of Wolves will be informed heavily by the players they sell and sign in the coming weeks.

Coventry City

Coventry changed their manager too. Mark Robins is adored by Sky Blues supporters for restoring some semblance of respectability even as one of football’s most chaotic clubs bounced from one disaster to the next, but he left the club in the autumn with the very idea of promotion seemingly out of the question.

Frank Lampard was a bold choice as his replacement. City were seventeenth in the Championship as their supporters settled down for their Christmas dinners but finished the season in fifth place.

Dramatic late goals were the order of the day at the Coventry Building Society Arena in Lampard’s first six months in charge and took the Sky Blues into the play-offs.

They got an unwelcome taste of their own medicine in the semi-final against Sunderland. Having levelled the aggregate score through Ephron Mason-Clark’s goal in the second leg at the Stadium of Light, Coventry succumbed to Dan Ballard’s unorthodox header deep into stoppage time at the end of extra time.

Coventry’s hopes were blinked out in a split-second but Lampard has shown enough to believe there’s a chance they’ll be up there in the mix again next season. If Matt Grimes is a typical buy, supporters will sense that further acquisitions this summer will improve their promotion chances.

Lampard has improved his managerial stock by getting a tune out of his players this season but he’s raised expectations too. Whether or not owner Doug King sets a specific target of promotion for his manager in 2025/26, that’s where most supporters will have placed their bar.

West Bromwich Albion

On Good Friday, the Sky Blues welcomed West Brom to Coventry for a crucial match in the battle for a play-off place.

The Baggies had won their home game against Lampard’s team in the early days of his reign in December but soon lost head coach Carlos Corberán to Valencia. January brought about the return of Tony Mowbray – formerly of both Albion and Coventry – but also the sale of goalkeeper Alex Palmer to Ipswich Town and an injury to Josh Maja.

Albion had lost their match-winners at both ends of the pitch and it showed. Defeat at Coventry put an end to any meaningful chance of sneaking a play-off spot and a subsequent defeat to Derby County on Easter Monday was followed swiftly by Mowbray’s dismissal.

Former Spurs midfielder Ryan Mason has been appointed to his first full-time management job after a couple of interim spells at his former club and some time as an assistant coach under Ange Postecoglou.

Hiring a rookie manager isn’t necessarily a cheap option for the sake of it. Football clubs like fresh ideas and well educated coaches as much as rugged experience and justifiably so. It is a risk, though, and there is nothing easy about this particular job.

Mason takes over with Albion in the midst of their longest unbroken spell outside the Premier League for more than twenty years and in a financial situation that presents a dilemma.

A club that needs to balance the books will presumably task its new manager with giving them a shot at a Premier League return. That’s a difficult ledger to square.

Birmingham City

For all the attention on Wrexham’s Hollywood resurgence, the team that stormed to the League One title ahead of them in 2024/25 were better, more interesting to watch, more punchy in the transfer market, and far more emphatically promoted.

That’s only natural. Birmingham and Wrexham arrived in League One from different ends of the table last summer and Birmingham’s immediate return to the Championship was bankrolled by serious American money.

The Blues invested in their playing staff and brought in both Willum Willumson and Christoph Klarer for fees higher than the previous League One transfer record before laughing at those fees and signing former loanee Jay Stansfield for a reported £15 million plus add-ons.

Investment is the obvious driver of Birmingham’s promotion to the second tier – playing budget is the best predictor of success in English football – but in Chris Davies, another former Spurs coach, they have a manager who offers everything West Brom will be looking for from Mason.

Davies is yet to be tested in the Championship but Birmingham were highly organised, tactically superior, dynamic in attacking areas and usually ruthless until they no longer needed to be.

Money helps in football to a disproportionate degree but it guarantees nothing. Davies is one of the most intriguing managers in the EFL. He is convincing when he speaks about the game in detail and his approach wasn’t just the most successful in the third tier this season. It was dominant.

Walsall

There are books to be written about Walsall in 2024/25 and it would be surprising if none of them came to fruition. It’s the most extraordinary tale. The Saddlers’ failure to get promoted is mystifying.

Manager Mat Sadler will tell you that Walsall were out-performing their expectations when they streaked out into a clear lead at the top of League Two in the winter. As they got reeled in, they were regressing back towards a more realistic target for the season as a whole.

Sadler, who signed a contract extension in January, maintained that stance consistently and with good reason. Walsall weren’t anybody’s tip as runaway champions. But the extent to which they lost their grip on that negative momentum is the stuff of football nightmares.

They missed out on automatic promotion right at the last. Bradford City went up with Doncaster Rovers and Port Vale thanks to a dramatic stoppage-time winner on the final day.

Walsall, after an alarming collapse in the second half of the season, actually did their bit that day by beating Crewe Alexandra.

Chesterfield were seen off in the unwanted play-off semi-final before defeat against Wimbledon at Wembley. The Saddlers ran out of chances and the devastating impact of the mid-season loss of Nathan Lowe, a teenage loanee striker, will be puzzled over for years.

Despite Villa, Coventry, West Brom and Walsall missing out on their respective targets by relatively fine margins, football in the West Midlands region is showing signs of life.

Villa will be its sole representative in Europe again next season, albeit in the Europa League this time, but Wolves can take encouragement from their recovery in 2024/25. Coventry will be targeting promotion to join them both in the Premier League and Albion, possibly, will share that aim.

Now in the Championship, Birmingham are tipped to continue their progress next season. With major investment, solid decisions and a very promising manager, they should make their presence felt.

The state of Walsall’s 2025/26 is anyone’s guess. Sadler wasn’t able to halt their dismal drift but comments about him from his players suggest he’s a sharp coach and didn’t cause the decline either.

Birmingham and the West Midlands are producing players recognised globally for their abilities. If the region’s clubs can evolve to give those talents a local springboard, the next wellspring of English football might pop up where it’s least expected.

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