West Brom close to appointing Slaven Bilic as head coach

Image: Bilic impressed bosses at West Brom in an interview last week

Slaven Bilic is close to agreeing a deal to become West Brom's new head coach, Sky Sports News understands.

Several face-to-face meetings have taken place between Bilic and Albion's bosses - and while at first there was "substantial distance" between both sides over the issue of salary - there is now a broad agreement on that and other key issues.

One source has told Sky Sports News that Bilic has been made a formal offer from Albion to take over the job, but there has been no comment from the club, who are remaining tight-lipped about the process.

Image: Bilic's last managerial job in England was at West Ham - he was sacked in November 2017

Bilic was first interviewed for the role last week and impressed Albion bosses enough to jump ahead of Chris Hughton, Chris Wilder and Bruno Labbadia in the running for the job.

West Brom have been without a head coach since James Shan's run as caretaker boss ended with a Sky Bet Championship play-off semi-final defeat to Aston Villa.

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Image: James Shan could not guide Albion to promotion during his spell as caretaker manager

Shan took over from Darren Moore in March, after he was surprisingly dismissed with Albion fourth in the Championship at the time.

For Bilic, this will be his first job back in English football since he was sacked by West Ham in November 2017.

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Image: Darren Moore was sacked after a run of two defeats in three games

In the 2015/16 season, his first in charge of West Ham, Bilic led the club to their best Premier League points tally in what was their final campaign at the Boleyn Ground, finishing seventh on 62 points and securing a place in the Europa League.

But he was unable to replicate the same success during the club's first season at the London Stadium, with West Ham failing to qualify for the Europa League group stage and flirting with the relegation places throughout the campaign before finishing in 11th place.

After a poor start to the 2017/18 season, with West Ham 18th in the Premier League, Bilic was dismissed.

Since then, the former Croatia manager had a brief five-month spell in charge of Saudi Arabain side Al-Ittihad but was sacked in February after winning just three of his 15 matches in charge.

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