West Bromwich Albion form has dipped but winnable fixtures approaching

A look at WBA’s recent weeks in the Championship.

Transcript

00:00West Bromwich Albion started the season fantastically well with top of the division. They've slipped

00:06down to fourth with 17 points still. I'm sure most or all of West Bromwich's fanbase would

00:13have taken that at this stage. But without winning three, losing Sheffield Wednesday

00:19and then Middlesbrough at home and then drawing to Millwall at home, a bit of momentum has

00:25sort of gone. How have they sort of revived that? There's some winnable fixtures coming

00:30up, but comparing it to the start of the season, has much changed or do they just need to sort

00:36of get back with that confidence?

00:39It's a strange one really, because I don't think anyone expected West Brom to start the

00:43way they did, winning pretty much every single game apart from that draw against Leeds United

00:47at home, another goalless one. Josh Major starting a lot better than a lot of people

00:51would have expected as well. Seven goals in seven. That's now seven in nine. Just the

00:55output up front hasn't quite been there in these last three games. Did score twice away

01:00at Sheffield Wednesday, which isn't too bad. Just an off day defensively, that one. The

01:04Middlesbrough game maybe just outsmarted a little bit. Payton Hackney getting the late

01:08goal in that and then Millwall, they sat back and they played for a nil-nil draw. There

01:12was no doubt about that. West Brom had 80% of the ball in that game at the Hawthorns

01:16and just such a frustrating game for Albion. They couldn't make a way through. I think

01:21we might see a few changes for this weekend against Oxford United. It's inevitable when

01:26they're not scoring goals too much in the last few matches and it's a bit more clinical.

01:30Jed Wallace has been on the bench for much of this season. Could we see him maybe getting

01:34a start? Tom Fellows has been in and out of the team the last few weeks. Sure that he's

01:38got to play. He's one of the most exciting players in the whole squad. And then Mikey

01:42Johnston not quite hitting the ground running as people would have hoped. Is Carlin Grant

01:46the better option? Lots of selection dilemmas for Corbran, but a good problem really to

01:50have such depth in attack.

01:51Yeah, and just on the fixtures coming up, obviously Oxford away, Blackburn away, Cardiff

01:56City are rock bottom at home. I mean, you look at those fixtures and if you are going

02:01to be a team that's going to be reaching those playoff places and maybe challenging in a

02:05possible title race come the end of the season, the big parts of the season, these are games

02:10that you have to get points at.

02:11Yeah, I think the Oxford one, it's a newly promoted team. They've drawn three, lost three

02:16and won three of their games. So it's been a bit of a shaky and strange start for them.

02:20I mean, three wins out of nine is not too bad at all for a newly promoted team, but

02:25the golfing quality in the two squads, you would expect West Brom to get a decent result

02:29there.

02:30Blackburn's a lot trickier. John Eustace has led them to a very good start to this season,

02:34but they've maybe been overperforming a little bit. They've been quite clinical. If you look

02:37at the expected goals figures so far this season, they have been outperforming what

02:41they should be doing. So another one where you'd fancy at least a draw maybe. And then

02:45that final game against Cardiff City has simply got to be three points. You've got to be beating

02:50those teams in the round at the bottom of the table if you're going to be getting promoted

02:53to the Premier League.