These two sides have both begun the season rather poorly and so pressure is on the both of them to get their season up and running. Otherwise they may well end up getting dragged into a relegation battle before they know what’s hit them.
Albion announced earlier on Friday that the deal to take over the club by a Chinese group headed by Guochuan Lai has gone through. Commenting on the situation, manager Tony Pulis has said he does not expect much to change. However, it will be interesting to see if these new owners, who surely harbour some kind of ambition, put up with their manager’s direct style of play. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with this tactic and I am all for teams adopting different approaches – it is what makes the game interesting. Unfortunately, you get the feeling that Guochuan Lai and co may look to move onto a new coach sooner rather than later.
Whilst Pulis’ style of football is effective more often than not (it is why he has managed at the top level for so long) you get the feeling that if his West Brom side concede first then they have virtually no chance of winning the match. Goals are certainly not the Baggies’ forte and having failed to find a decent striker in the latest transfer window, you can see why Albion fans are worried.
With their move into the Olympic Stadium (now the London Stadium) along with Europa League football, this season looked like it was going to be rather bright for West Ham. However, a poor loss to Romanian side Astra Girugiu put paid to their European dreams whilst their home ground is certainly not homely at the moment.
Right now it seems like West Ham are playing at a neutral venue rather than at home. The London Stadium is vastly different to the old Boleyn Ground with the fans further away from the pitch and the atmosphere still rather stale. All of which has all seemingly rubbed off on West Ham players as we saw a shocking collapse by the Hammers at home to Watford last week.
At 2-0 up the Hammers looked to be cruising to victory but it seemed complacency got the better of them. Watford captain Troy Deeney says that the West Ham players showboating with still a considerable amount of the match to go motivated his side as they eventually overturned the deficit and ran out 4-2 winners.
This concern surrounding their home venue of course puts a lot of pressure on the away games as they now have added importance. Travelling to a difficult venue like the Hawthorns is not what you want to be doing when you are relying on away results to pick up points.
I think we are certainly in for a tense game on Saturday and I think it’ll either be an incredibly narrow victory for either side or a 0-0 draw. With this in mind I would certainly look at backing ‘Both Teams to Score – No’ at 22/23 along with ‘Under 1.5 Goals’ at 28/13.
I suppose if I had to back one team I would go with Albion given their home advantage, whilst Tony Pulis is a master of pulling results out of games like this. Having said that, the better option is to take ‘West Bromwich Albion Draw No bet’.
See more tips here.