West Brom v Fulham - Match preview
They are the two teams everyone was tipping for promotion at the beginning of the season.
But while Fulham are top of the Championship and on the brink of a Premier League return, Albion are languishing in 14th spot and battling to keep their season alive.
The Baggies’ form over the past three months has been so poor that supporters heading to The Hawthorns tonight will be expecting to see their team get beat.
But after a slow start to Steve Bruce’s tenure as boss, there have been signs of improvement in the last two games.
Albion’s victory at Hull 10 days ago was comfortable. And when hope looked lost against Huddersfield last Friday, they somehow managed to dig deep and score two late goals to snatch a point.
Speaking after the draw with the Terriers, Bruce said his team has taken baby steps forward.
And that’s because they are starting to rediscover the defensive solidity they enjoyed in the opening months of Valerien Ismael’s reign as head coach.
Despite having some dangerous players, Hull never really looked like scoring at the MKM Stadium.
High-flying Huddersfield also weren’t overly threatening last Friday – with both their goals coming from errors from goalkeeper Sam Johnstone.
And Bruce believes in a 3-5-2 system Albion look defensively strong – with the boss admitting he made a mistake when he decided to switch to a 4-3-3 formation for his first few games in charge.
“Defensively, I think we’ve made progress,” Bruce said.
“I changed us to try to make us more offensive, but it didn’t really work if I’m being brutally honest.
“I changed to a back four and played 4-3-3. But, on attempts on goal, we were no better off and we were slightly worse defensively.
“Take away Sam’s mistakes against Huddersfield and I don’t think defence is a problem. We’ve kept 14 clean sheets this season.
“Now we are going to have to be at our best defensively because we are up against the best team in the league in my opinion.
“In Aleksandar Mitrovic, they have a striker who has scored 35 goals with 11 to play. That’s staggering.
“We’re going to have to be alive in our box. But if we are, we’ll have a chance.”
Bruce believes if Albion get a result tonight, they can still make a late dash for the play-offs – with April, in particular, a hectic month.
“If we can get a result against Fulham it would put us in with a chance before we go to Bristol City on Saturday,” the boss added.
“I’ve just looked at what’s happening in April, it’s ridiculous.
“Talk about the tickly bit, dear me, there’s seven games. Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday for weeks. If the gap then is four or five points, in this league you can make that up with four or five wins on the spin. I believe we’re capable of that.”
