West Brom can mark their Premier League return with a bang and fright the Foxes

It is looking likely to be a rollercoaster ride of a season for the newly-promoted Baggies, but they can kick it off with a statement against a Leicester side who ended the last Premier League campaign woefully.

The Hawthorns will host top-flight football for the first time in 28 months on Sunday as West Bromwich Albion kick-off their return to the Premier League with a Midlands clash against Leicester City, a game which has a clear favourite, but could certainly provide a shock.

Slaven Bilic’s side have been backed by many for an instant return to the Championship ahead of the 2020/21 campaign, for various reasons including uninspiring signings, a Championship-level squad and the fact that they only just about got over the line when securing their promotion in July, grateful for the poor end-of-season form of Brentford.

However, one signing who is certainly the opposite of uninspiring is the permanent capture of Grady Diangana from West Ham for a reported £16m. The exciting winger spent last season on loan at the Hawthorns and majorly impressed, scoring eight goals and registering seven assists in 30 Championship appearances last term.

As well as the 22-year-old, West Brom have also managed to capture the permanent signings of other loanees from last term too, bringing back the exceptional Matheus Pereira and useful Callum Robinson from Benfica and Sheffield United respectively.

There’s fire power in Slaven Bilic’s side and they could certainly cause a few surprises this season and that starts against Brendan Rodgers’ out-of-sorts Leicester City.

Despite achieving last season’s goal of European football, Leicester fans were certainly disheartened when the season ended with Europa League football and not Champions League, having impressed thoroughly throughout the 2019/20 season and occupying a top-four spot for virtually the entirety of the campaign.

Form in 2020 has been very hard to come by for the Foxes, winning just five Premier League matches since the turn of the year which saw Rodgers’ side fall down to the sword of Manchester United on the final day, losing 2-0 to regrettably hand their deserved Champions League place over to the Old Trafford club. 

But of course, it’s a new season which means that a metaphoric reset button can be pushed and Leicester can start from scratch and find form similar to that of the first-half of last season…not quite. Given these unprecedented times the Foxes have had around half of the usual time between the end of the previous season and the start of the new one, meaning that there is a chance that they don’t find their feet again as quickly as they’d like.

Foxes fans we be keen to see performances that replicate the beginning of last season’s heroics to get back up and running again.

If they are to start the campaign strongly once again, the form of English-duo Jamie Vardy and James Maddison seen last term will be paramount. Both players recently signed new contracts at the King Power, showing that the club is still certainly moving in the right direction. Leicester have a fantastic side, it’s just a matter of dusting themselves off and going again, but the concern for them will be that the bad taste left by missing out on Champions League qualification so recently. 

Step forward West Bromwich Albion. Slaven Bilic’s side are back in the big time and will certainly fancy themselves to get a result here and mark their return to the top-flight with a statement win. Will they dominate possession? No. Do they have the better team on paper? Certainly not. But will they give it a good go and give themselves a chance of picking up a result? I’m confident that they will.

Leicester will still be without right-back Ricardo Pereira who is recovering from an ACL injury, however the signing of versatile full-back Timothy Castagne from Atalanta this summer shouldn’t make the Portuguese’s absence a significant issue.

Veteran defender Wes Morgan will also miss out with a thigh injury but Rodgers will be hopeful that he can get star-man James Maddison involved who missed the final games of last season with a groin injury.

As for the hosts, they boast a strong bill of health with Kenneth Zohore (calf) and Conor Townsend (ankle) the only possible absentees reported.

Getting a result on Sunday will be a tough ask for newly-promoted West Brom, but it’s certainly not outside of the realms of possibility.

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