Match Preview: Brighton v West Bromwich Albion
The magic of the FA Cup is back at the Amex as Brighton look to make the fifth round of the world’s greatest cup competition for just the fourth time in the past 30 years.
Standing in their way are Championship promotion chasers West Bromwich Albion. Obviously, an immediate return to the Premier League is the Baggies’ priority this season and with Brighton’s “reserves” having already dispatched of top flight rivals Plucky Little Bournemouth in the last round, many people will fancy the Seagulls to progress.
Fingers crossed they do. With Arsenal and Liverpool already eliminated, the competition is opening up nicely for one of the smaller Premier League sides to go far. After the enjoyment that we all got out of last season’s run to the last eight, let’s hope it’s Brighton.
Who are West Bromwich Albion?
West Bromwich Albion were formed in 1878 as West Bromwich Strollers, a name which they unfortunately ditched two years later. In 1888, they became founder members of the Football League and won their only league title in 1920. The Baggies have spent most of their existence in the top flight although they did go into a steep decline throughout the 1980s and 90s, dropping into the third tier for the first and only time in their history. In the 00’s, they developed a reputation as a yo-yo club who would bounce between Championship and Premier League before finally establishing themselves back in the top tier for an eight season stay which came to and end last May.
What are they like now?
West Brom’s strategy for many years was to go for whichever manager from the Premier League survival specialists was out of work at the time. As a result, they can count Roy Hodgson and Tony Pulis among their former bosses with the tactic finally failing with Alan Pardew last season. Pardew won just one league game in charge – no prizes for guessing who that was against – and when he inevitably bit the bullet, the Baggies turned to Darren Moore. This internal appointment has proven to be a masterstroke, Moore winning the Premier League’s Manager of the Month award for April 2017 despite West Brom’s relegation and he is subsequently leading a strong challenge for promotion this time around with the Baggies currently third in the table. Given the struggles that their fellow relegated clubs Swansea City and Nathan Jones’ new side Stoke City have had so far, that’s no mean feat.
Which players should we be worried about?
It really depends what sort of side Moore sends out. In their 1-0 third round win over Wigan Athletic, he selected a number of fringe players but was still able to call upon names such as former Crystal Palace midfielder Bakary Sako, Chris Brunt and Wes Hoolahan. One man who didn’t play in that win over the Latics was Jay Rodriguez and hopefully he won’t be on the pitch at the Amex either, just in case he decides to allegedly racially abuse any of our players again.
What’s the Albion’s record against West Bromwich Albion?
In a nutshell, whoever is the home team tends to win. Brighton have triumphed in the last three meetings between the two in Sussex but have only ever won once at the Hawthorns. That came in the only previous cup game between the two, a Peter Ward brace for third tier Brighton shocking top division West Brom 2-0 in the League Cup of 1976.
What’s the best WeAreBrighton.com memory of West Bromwich Albion at home?
The Albion secured their first Premier League three points against the Baggies last season as Pascal Gross scored twice in a 3-1 victory. There aren’t really many other memories to choose from given that West Brom were one of those sides we always seemed to miss out on playing against – every time we went into the Championship, they’d get promoted to the Premier League and every time they were relegated, we ended up back in League One.
What’s the worst WeAreBrighton.com memory of West Bromwich Albion at home?
The hangover celebrating the aforementioned victory was pretty bloody terrible.
Who’s played for both sides?
For unfathomable reasons, Gus Poyet wanted to sign every possible full back from West Brom in the 2011-12 season, with fantastic consequences. Firstly, we had Gonzalo Jara, an absolute animal who looked like a red card waiting to happen every week. He was even more of a liability off the pitch, missing the 1-0 defeat against Burnley in December after he’d been arrested on the morning of the game when police caught him driving while he was meant to be serving a 17-month ban for drink driving. The other signing was Joe Mattock, who also missed a game in bizarre circumstances after he was ruled out “injured” when cutting his bollocks while attempting to shave them.
Other than football, what is West Bromwich famous for?
The town itself grew during the industrial revolution thanks to it being situated on large coal deposits. Somehow, this resulted in it becoming a major centre for gun development which hardly seems like a big industry in a country such as Britain. Among West Bromwich’s famous residents are Frank Skinner and Denise Lewis, an absolute hero to anyone who went to school in the 00’s and used to dedicate every ICT lesson to playing Denise Lewis Heptathlon on the BBC website.
Where’s the betting value for Brighton v West Bromwich Albion?
As always with cup games, it’s tough to know what to gamble on as you can never be sure what sort of side each team is going to field. It seems likely that Anthony Knockaert will start and given that he scored in the last round at the Vitality Stadium, 10/3 for him to notch anytime seems like a decent price. Both sides scored on West Brom’s last visit to the Amex and if you think it will be a repeat of that, then our partners at FansBet have boosted Brighton to win and both teams to score to 16/5.
Prediction
We saw how good Chris Hughton’s squad is in the win over Bournemouth and it should prove too good for a Championship side’s second string. A 2-1 win for Brighton.
