Worrying home records and lack of a goalscorer – West Bromwich Albion Mid-Season Review

After the nail-biting ending to last season for the Baggies, the side has been yet to hit the same levels that their automatic promotion counterparts have hit at the half-way part of this campaign.

At the start of the season, West Brom were one of the clear favourites to be relegated alongside Fulham and Aston Villa with many believing that their incoming players didn’t have enough firepower to match the levels required to stay clear of the relegation zone come to the end of the season and up to this point, the critics have been right.

The side sits on 11 points, six points behind 17th place Brighton and are below Fulham who are on 12 points with a game in hand and could potentially extend the gap between the sides to four points.

However, the side has a comfortable cushion over Sheffield United who sit bottom on five points in which has been an extremely underwhelming season for the Blades following the heights of last season’s campaign.

At the time manager Slaven Bilic focused heavily on bringing in forward-minded players which saw the incoming of Grady Diangana from West Ham, Karlan Grant from Huddersfield Town and the permanent signing of Matheus Pereira from Sporting Lisbon following his successful loan spell at the club.

A swap deal for the permanent signing of Callum Robinson, who once again enjoyed a successful spell at the Midlands club last season, saw Oli Burke go the other way and the side received an undisclosed fee for the Scotsman who never found his feet at the Hawthorns.

The club also brought back Filip Krovinovic on loan from Benfica and agreed on a loan deal for Chelsea’s young midfielder Conor Gallagher who played a major part in Swansea’s Play-Off push.

The window also saw the departure of Jonathan Leko to Birmingham City, however, the biggest departure from the club didn’t come until December 16th. Just four days after a shock draw against Manchester City, Slaven Bilic was fired after 18 months at the helm of the club, with the club sitting in 19th place and only picking up seven points it was only to be expected.

Since then relegation specialist, Sam Allardyce has been announced to have taken over at the club, with the Baggies needing to score more goals if they have any chance of survival.

Five key games

West Brom 3 – 3 Chelsea, 26/09/20 

The first game chosen for the key games is the draw against Chelsea. Following a 5-2 defeat to Everton on the opening day and a shock Carabao Cup exit against Brentford, fans presumed to be showed up against Frank Lampard’s Chelsea squad but that wasn’t to be.

Within 27 minutes, the Midlands club were three to the good following a brace from Robinson and a goal from Kyle Bartley, yet Bilic’s men couldn’t hold onto the lead in the second half.

Goals from Chelsea’s golden boys, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount levelled the game and the Blues took a point.

A disappointing result for the Baggies but showed that they had the ability to score goals but were still leaky at the back.

West Brom 1 – 0 Sheffield United, 28/11/20 

Arguably the biggest game of the season for the Baggies was there bout against Sheffield United and this was a massive relegation six-pointer, with the Midlands club coming out on top after Gallagher’s goal early on in the game.

Liverpool 1 – 1 West Brom, 27/12/20 

This was the second game under Sam Allardyce for West Brom and following a 3-0 home battering to the hands of their fellow Midlands side Aston Villa, questions arose around how many would be put past the side against Liverpool.

The Reds would take the lead only to be held back by a Semi Ajayi equaliser, a first goal and the first point under Allardyce was now on the board.

West Brom 0 – 5 Leeds United, 29/12/20 

Two days later West Brom would again face a battering, this time at the hands of high flying Leeds United, who have massively impressed pundits in their first spell in the Premier League in 16 years.

A devastating first-half performance put the game out of the hands of the Allardyce’s side and after 45 minutes the side were down by four goals, conceding three between the 30th and 40th minute.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 – 3 West Brom, 16/01/21

It was vital for West Brom to have a good outing against their rivals Wolves and desperately needed to keep fans on side, following the poor start under Allardyce shipping 13 goals in the league and scoring only once alongside being knocked out by Blackpool in the cup.

Matheus Pereira led his side to victory following two penalties in a 3-2 win where the side would have to regain the lead for the second time following Wolves’ two goals in quick reply to Pereira’s early penalty.

Star players

It is pretty clear to see who is making a valiant effort to keep the Baggies up this season and the player leading that is Matheus Pereira.

The Brazillian has been the main outlet for West Brom and in a season consisting of just 15 league goals, Pereira has been apart of seven of these and will be the main player who can really help West Brom in their survival push and whilst it is a potentially unlikely feat Pereira will be the one leading it.

The next highest goalscorers after Pereira’s four are Gallagher, Robinson and Ajayi who are all on two, a worrying feat for West Brom fans and will be leaving Allardyce worrying about the lack of goals in his side.

Underperforming players

The Baggies’ two biggest underperformers have been the wingers that were brought in by Bilic in the Summer, Grady Diangana and Karlan Grant.

Both set the Championship alight last season with 37 contributions between the pair, yet in 1,941 minutes this campaign they have got two goals combined and are yet to assist.

Both signings have set the club back a fair amount that was rumoured to be around £25 million. It is vital that Allardyce gets the two players to their best if West Brom want to boost their survival chances.

What’s next?

For West Brom to stay up their home form needs to vastly improve. The side sits 29 points away from the golden safety number currently and with tough games coming up in Manchester City and another relegation six-pointer, Fulham.

Allardyce cannot afford to keep shipping goals as the side has since his takeover of the management role. The side has conceded 19 since his arrival and scored seven, the worrying thing, however, 12 of these goals conceded were at home. Something that the Baggies have to improve on if they want to complete a great escape.

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