West Bromwich Albion will welcome Nottingham Forest to The Hawthorns this Friday night as the Baggies look to close the gap on Bournemouth in second place with the Cherries now extending their lead over them by eight points following three games without a win.
Valérien Ismaël’s men have, in truth, had an excellent season until they met with Middlesbrough at the start of November, as they drew with them before losing to Huddersfield Town before then drawing with Blackpool.
That's 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗔𝗡𝗘, @samjohnstone. 😳— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) November 24, 2021
That's 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗔𝗡𝗘, @samjohnstone. 😳
It means West Brom have picked up only two points from their last nine and consequently last momentum on their return to the Premier League.
Prior to this, the club had lost only three of their 16 games and won nine of them and were considered one of the favourites to head back into the top flight.
Now, however, meeting with a Forest side who have lost just one game since early September has now become a tougher and more important game than it needed to be.
Forest have only won six of these 12 games and the managerial changes at the club haven’t exactly changed their fortunes that greatly as they still sit 13th and nine points off the two spots they’ve got their eyes on: the bottom three and the top six.
A play-off charge could still be on given their one defeat in two months, but one defeat could spell disaster and another run towards the drop zone.
Steve Cooper’s men now need to start turning these draws into wins because as of now, they’ve scored 24 goals and conceded 23 and given their nine-point stretch on the play-offs and relegation, their season is quite literally as topsy-turvy as it gets.
As for West Brom, they've managed to concede only 16 goals in 19 games thus far which puts them as the third best defensive side in the league, but their 27 goals scored could do with improving as this is only four more than 21st-placed Reading.
More alarmingly for the Baggies entering this game is the fact they are once again without captain and the instrumental Jake Livermore due to his suspension picked up against Huddersfield two games ago.
This is clearly preventing their efforts on goal, as they only managed three shots on target in their goalless draw with Blackpool.
Forebet are predicting a close game here and one that will end in a draw and see under 2.5 goals as not much is separating both West Brom and Forest here.