Could Mowbray really return to the Baggies?

Tony Mowbray has been out of football since his health scare at Birmingham City 11 months ago

Tony Mowbray is the latest in a long line of bookmakers' favourites speculated about for the vacancy of West Bromwich Albion head coach.

Even before the club opted for Raphael Wicky as their preferred candidate there were reports that 61-year-old Mowbray had been invited to discuss the vacancy.

After former Swiss international Wicky then turned the job down at the 11th hour earlier this week because he couldn't assemble a backroom staff, Mowbray was then understood to be back on the Baggies radar.

This head coach search promised to focus on being thorough rather than quick but it is now more than three weeks since Carlos Corberan's departure. And, with time ticking away in the January transfer window and three games to come in the space of a week, the club's owners will be aware that speed may need to become a priority.

Appointing one of the most well-respected managers in English football, who is fondly remembered for that easy-on-the-eye promotion campaign in his first spell at The Hawthorns 17 years ago, might now be a sensible move.

It would also be a heart-warming return to the West Midlands for Mowbray, who was forced to stepped down as Birmingham City boss almost 12 months ago for what was later revealed to be bowel cancer, revealed in a BBC interview just before his official resignation in May.

As it stands though, one of the first summer signings in that Championship title-winning campaign Chris Brunt, the man who Mowbray brought in from Sheffield Wednesday in August 2007, is set to remain in interim charge.

Albion's next scheduled press conference ahead of this Saturday's Championship derby with Stoke City, who Mowbray's Albion pipped to the trophy in 2008, is on Friday at 16:00 GMT with Brunt.