West Brom was relegated from the Premier League on Tuesday after Southampton’s 1-0 victory over Swansea City ended the Midlands club’s eight-year stay in the top flight.
Southampton’s win moved them onto 36 points, leaving West Brom five points adrift of the safety zone with one match to play.
West Brom has been rejuvenated in recent weeks, winning three games in an unbeaten five-match run.
Yet their impressive late-season rally, spearheaded by the appointment of caretaker manager Darren Moore, came too late in the campaign.
Moore replaced Alan Pardew at the start of April, taking over with the club seven points adrift at the bottom of the table and 10 short of the safety zone with six matches to play.
He helped engineer an almost remarkable turnaround in their fortunes, guiding them to wins over Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur plus draws against Swansea and Liverpool.
West Brom’s 1-0 home victory over fourth-placed Tottenham on Saturday lifted them off the bottom of the table for the first time since January, but the celebrations were short-lived.
Any hope of taking their fight for survival to the final weekend of the season was snuffed out at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium on Tuesday.
Southampton’s Manolo Gabbiadini bundled home a second-half goal to settle a scrappy encounter that almost certainly kept the south-coast club in the Premier League.
