Bryan Robson has been in familiar company during his period in the wilderness. Every time a job comes up the same names appear on betting-shop boards. Do George Graham, Kenny Dalglish, Terry Venables, et al, ever grow weary of seeing their names on newspaper shortlists? Robson seemed destined to join the catalogue of has-beens before West Bromwich Albion came along, offering a consoling arm to a man whose managerial career had looked shipwrecked.

To most Premiership clubs, his reputation had suffered potentially irretrievable damage during his final days at Middlesbrough.

"Robbo? Good bloke, likes a drink . . . not for us." That was generally the reaction when his application landed on chairmen's desks. Robson was in danger of losing career and dignity before the club where he began wiped the dust off his CV and gave him a go.

Today he will be feted by both sets of fans when Manchester United roll into The Hawthorns. It was the same a fortnight ago when Middlesbrough were the first visitors since he became Gary Megson's successor. These are still the embryonic stages of his rehabilitation, but there is no shortage of people wishing him well.

"There's one certainty: he'll give West Brom great determination," Alex Ferguson said yesterday. "I thought he did a terrific job at Middlesbrough. He took them to three cup finals and won two promotions, so I always found it strange a manager of that calibre could be out of the game for so long."

Ferguson harbours genuine affection for a man once nicknamed Captain Marvel. Yet in the periods when Manchester United's manager has needed an assistant he, too, has looked elsewhere. Robson has been invited to Carrington to help out with training, but there was never a full-time post for him.

"I had my doubts I would ever get the chance with another Premiership club," he now says. "The longer you are out the more doubts there are."

The real damage to his reputation occurred at Middlesbrough in those final days when Robson ran out of ideas and asked the chairman, Steve Gibson, to bring in outside help. Football can be brutal sometimes, and those who watch it have selective memories. The sight of Robson standing forlornly beside Venables as the older man received the crowd's acclaim has become the defining image of his time at the Riverside.

"People seem to have forgotten all the good things he achieved," says Viv Anderson, Robson's assistant manager at Middlesbrough. "They have these preconceptions about him that are largely wrong, such as him being a cheque-book manager. The truth is that his overall deficit in seven and a half years at Middlesbrough was £15 million. He was a great man-manager, at his best when working with players, and his record at Middlesbrough took the club on to a new level."

Anderson is as bewildered as Ferguson as to why Robson was cast into the wilderness. "It makes you wonder what the criteria is for success these days. What do chairmen seek in a new manager? I think everyone in the game is surprised he has not got back into the Premiership before now. And then you see what has happened to Harry Redknapp . . . I mean, how do you define a successful manager any more?"

Back in work, Robson would rather look to the future than the past, though he has admitted to being "disappointed" by the lack of job opportunities. "The only blip on my CV at Middlesbrough was the last year, which was a hard one," he said. "That counted against me."

As did his alleged nocturnal habits. "He drank as hard as he played," Roy Keane says of Robson in his autobiography. Yet Robson's fondness for a pint will matter little as long as his side continue to produce encouraging results. They returned with a 1-1 draw from Arsenal a week ago, and only a freakish stoppage-time miss from Nwankwo Kanu deprived them of a point against Middlesbrough. The object is to keep a willing but limited team in the Premiership and, should he achieve that, the fickleness of the football world means that Robson will suddenly be revered again.

"Not so long ago people were talking about him as a future England manager," says Cyrille Regis, his former West Brom team-mate. "You don't lose those qualities overnight. Bryan has great inner strength and steely determination. To succeed in football, you need character. He's got bags of it."