Hyder Jawad sees an entertaining and satisfying spectacle as Albion unveil their new manager

West Bromwich Albion's press conference yesterday afternoon to display Tony Mowbray was perfectly choreographed and contained enough rhetoric to last an entire party political conference.

Jeremy Peace, the Albion chairman, also made an appearance, as if to prove that he really exists and is a lot more than just a name on a press release.

If Peace is the politician and prefers to talk like one, Mowbray is the one-man think-tank who would happily stay in the background if only it was not better for the club that he was pushed into the foreground.

"I regard the game as being about the players and about the spectators," Mowbray said, which was tantamount to saying that managers should be heard and not seen.

The problem for him here, in his search for eternal anonymity, was that too many photographers had turned up with too many flashlights and too many journalists had arrived with too many tape recorders.

Had the former Hibernian manager buried himself in Edinburgh, somebody would have dug him up and asked for a quote.

Peace wore the better suit but attracted less attention, partly because he is not the Albion manager, but also because he sounded like he was speaking at the House of Lords.

"We wanted to go through a process of very diligent research into whom our next manager would be," Peace said.

Loosely translated, this means that Albion put much effort into finding a successor to Bryan Robson.

"Tony's footballing philosophy is also in accordance with the great West Brom tradition of playing flowing, attacking football," Peace said.

Loosely translated, this means that Mowbray wants excitement to go with the goals.

Even when Peace dispensed with the verbosity and adopted a more human persona, he could not resist the temptation to proclaim the absurd. "I had a good working relationship with Bryan Robson," he said.

For the most part, yes; but latterly, no. It is no secret in football that Peace and Robson were starting to disagree about everything, up to and including the choice of wallpaper at Albion's training complex.

But now, to see Mowbray and Peace glowing in each other's company, it is hard to see enmity driving a chasm between them. Perhaps that is why Peace's head was shining like a new coin.

With Peace and Mowbray staying on message, it was left to Mark Venus to provide the graphic parlance. When discussing his trip to Selhurst Park on Tuesday to watch Albion play Crystal Palace, Venus said: "I was there last night to get a feel of the lads."

It was a "Colemanballs" moment, certainly not in keeping with the nature of this brilliantly organised spectacle, but appreciated nevertheless. Venus, who is Mowbray's assistant but looks young enough to be his son, also performed the impossible: he turned up looking smarter than Peace.

It was almost as if Venus was trying to overshadow everybody. Asked about Albion's forthcoming match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, for whom he once played, Venus said: "Tony Mowbray will be surprised at the passion of the Black Country derby. Well, I hope he is surprised."

Mowbray did not hear this because he was elsewhere, attracting the attention of the television cameras and generally making The Hawthorns seem warm and intimate for the first time since December 2005, when Robson stopped smiling and when Albion descended into a period of uncertain transition.

The long move back to a more natural, satisfying, state has been worth the wait. Albion are back doing what they do best: staging meaningful press conferences.

If the team are as good as this, a return to the Premiership is the only possible outcome.