Preston vs West Brom: Time for Baggies to prove it on the road
Every game is important in a league as relentless as the Championship, but there is a little added pressure on this one following defeat in the Carabao Cup.
Darren Moore made it clear in midweek the league was his priority when he rang the changes against Crystal Palace to save his big-hitters for this match.
Victory over bottom club Preston North End will go some way to vindicate that decision, and despite their opponents’ struggles so far, it would be an important win on the road.
Having picked up 10 points from a possible 12, Albion are in brilliant form in the Championship, but they have been far more convincing at The Hawthorns.
The last four home matches in the league have all been won, with 15 goals scored along the way.
Away from home it’s been a slightly different story, with just one win from four.
Nottingham Forest, Birmingham City and Middlesbrough have all outplayed the Baggies in their own stadia, and even the see-sawing 4-3 win at Carrow Road might have swung the other way on another day.
It’s going to be a completely different Albion team, of course, to the one that lost to Palace, with the usual starting XI replacing the second string.
Matt Phillips is the only doubt, and he faces a late fitness test on the muscle strain he picked up against Millwall.
With three games coming up in the next eight days, the winger is unlikely to be risked, which would hand 35-year-old Tyrone Mears his first start in the league. Phillips has arguably been one of the most consistent performers of the season so far, alongside Dwight Gayle and Jake Livermore.
Tailor-made for the wing-back role, his absence would be a blow.
The rest of the team picks itself.
Tuesday’s defeat proved that both the back three and the front two should remain the same, and Kieran Gibbs is in fine form at left wing-back.
Chris Brunt is likely to start in central midfield as Moore continues to rotate him and Gareth Barry during these busy periods.
Albion ticked an important box last weekend, when they controlled the game against Millwall and kept a clean sheet.
Now they need to do it on the road – and victory over a struggling North End side will boost confidence ahead of a trickier trip to Hillsborough in midweek.
“What we’re trying to do is to implement a new shape and a new style, along with new players being here,” said Moore
“All those aspects are going to result in goals being scored or goals being conceded. As a head coach, do we want goals conceded? No we don’t.
“Do we want goals scored? Yes, the perfect scenario is to score loads of goals and keep a clean sheet! We’re a team in transition and hopefully progressing.”
Tomorrow is another chance to see how much progress is being made.
The Opposition: Basement boys Preston in deep trouble
Preston North End only narrowly missed out on the play-offs last season – but they’ve found life much more tricky this time around.
Since beating QPR 1-0 on the opening day, Alex Neil’s team have picked up just two points from eight games and consequently find themselves rooted to the bottom of the table.
Scoring goals has not been a huge problem, particularly at Deepdale, where they have netted 12 times from six games in all competitions.
But they are haemorrhaging goals at the back, and having conceded 18 goals already in the league, they have the Championship’s leakiest defence.
The concerning thing for Preston is that the leak is constant.
The Lilywhites have conceded two or more goals in each of their last seven league games and three or more in each of their last three.
Which means even when they score two, like they did against Reading and Sheffield United, they’re not picking up any points.
Matching up the worst defence against the division’s deadliest attack seems like a recipe for disaster but Preston have only lost once at home so far in the league, and goalkeeper Chris Maxwell believes they can turn a corner soon.
“I’m not worried in the slightest about how things are at the moment and we’ve just proved that there because our performance was really good,” said the shot-stopper after Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup that Boro won on penalties.
“It was enthusiastic and everybody was running around working hard and also the spells of quality we had just shows how good a team we are.
“The important thing is we now take it on to Saturday.
“We’ve been playing well in spells. The problem is that we’ve not had that slice of luck that maybe we would have had at a different point in the year.
“I’m a firm believer that everything evens out over the course of the year.
“We had a bad spell around November time (last season) so hopefully it’s our bad patch out of the way and we can kick on.
“We’re a great, hard-working, honest group and with the gaffer taking training each day we’re desperate to turn things around and I think today was a stepping stone towards that.
“We’re looking forward to Saturday now, and the atmosphere was a lot better in that dressing room than it has been in recent weeks.
“We’re going to have to up our game as West Brom have some quality players but if we perform like that then we shouldn’t be far off.”
Midfielder Ben Pearson returned from his three-game suspension in midweek and is likely to play tomorrow.
Likely line-up:
Subs: Myhill, Adarabioyo, Field, Barry, Hoolahan, Burke, Robson-Kanu.
Preston (4-2-3-1): Maxwell, Fisher, Huntingdon, Davies, Hughes, Gallagher, Browne, Pearson, Ledson, Barkhuizen, Robinson.
Danger man:
Callum Robinson
The versatile forward has hit a rich of vein of form, netting four times in his last five games.
The Villa youth product represented England at all youth levels up until the age of 20 before declaring for the Republic of Ireland.
He’s still only 23, and has showed signs in recent weeks that he could have a big season.
Pie and a pint:
The Moorbrook Inn in North Road is within walking distance of Deepdale and serves a mixture of tasty real ales and fantastic wood-fired pizzas.
Worth a look:
In January 2005, Robert Earnshaw bagged a seven-minute brace at Deepdale in the FA Cup third round to send the Premier League strugglers through.
The key man:
If Matt Phillips doesn’t pass his late fitness test, he will leave big boots for Darren Moore’s left-field signing Tyrone Mears to fill at right wing-back.
