Former West Brom manager Alan Pardew has been speaking about the bizarre taxi incident which took place during a mid-season training camp in Spain.
It was reported that some Baggies players stole a taxi during some "down time" at their Barcelona hotel back in February. It came at a time when West Brom were showing promising signs after a disastrous start to the season and Pardew told Goals on Sunday presenters Ben Shephard and Chris Kamara that he believed the incident ultimately cost him his job.
Pardew explained: "Prior to that trip, we had a fantastic result. We beat Brighton in the league, we went to Liverpool in the cup and beat them with their strongest team. After the Liverpool game, I thought we had it. We were there or thereabouts and going to make it really tight for everyone else.
"But the Barcelona thing was a terrible incident. The players obviously let themselves down and let the club down and let me down and from that moment forward we never really got results that banished that thought.
"We had just got some momentum and we lost it with that incident. The senior players involved were a big, core part of my team."
Pardew was asked if he had not been able to drop the players involved and replied: "That was probably a decision that some of the players in the group thought I should have made. Some probably thought I shouldn't have.
"It was a decision that me and my staff talked long and hard into the night about what we were going to do in that situation. Obviously, we didn't call it right because otherwise we would have had a better reflection than we do now."
