West Bromwich Albion return to action tomorrow afternoon as they take on Millwall.
Carlos Corberan’s side haven’t been able to win since the latter stages of August, with their last victory coming against Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough.
Since then, Corberan has suffered a 2-1 defeat against his former side Huddersfield Town, drew 0-0 away at Bristol City last weekend and 2-2 at Watford in midweek.
Having taken the lead at Vicarage Road through Jed Wallace, they will have been disappointed not to have come away with all three points but on paper, a draw in Hertfordshire isn’t a bad result.
Now having the chance to return to The Hawthorns this Saturday, they face a Millwall side that have endured a mixed start to the campaign.
It’s been a very up-and-down start to the campaign for Gary Rowett’s side, who came away with a 1-0 away win at Boro before going on to lose their next two games.
There were even negative chants directed towards Rowett during their clash against Norwich City, but they haven’t been too bad since, winning two, drawing one and losing one of their last four league games.
Losing 3-0 against Leeds United last weekend, they responded with an excellent 3-0 win against Rotherham United in midweek and won’t be short of confidence because of that.
Sitting in 11th place now and just two points adrift of the top six, they aren’t far away from the promotion mix and that is a positive because they should be looking to finish in the top six at the end of this term.
The league may be harder to compete in this year – but the Lions need to show signs of progress.
Just one point separates the two sides coming into this match and with this in mind, it could be quite a close game.
The Baggies have the better attacking record and that could be very useful at home – but they also need to ensure they’re keeping things tight at the back.
Last weekend’s clean sheet at Ashton Gate shows they can do that – and Sky Sports pundit David Prutton has predicted a reasonably low-scoring tie.
He has gone with a 1-1 draw – a result that probably wouldn’t satisfy either team in their quest to finish in the top six at the end of this season.
It does seem as though this will be a close affair.
The Lions’ past two games have been anything but close in terms of the scorelines – but Albion have drawn their past two games and it’s difficult to separate the two teams.
The visitors’ defence could determine which way this game goes though.
If they can defend well, that would give him a real chance of getting a point or three but if they don’t, Albion have the attacking quality to punish them.
The likes of John Swift, Jed Wallace and Brandon Thomas-Asante can all be dangerous at this level and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see at least one of them get on the scoresheet.
But Prutton is probably right to predict a draw.
