View: Diangana to start in wholesale changes – West Brom predicted XI v Charlton
West Brom travel to Charlton for the second time in less than a week on Saturday when they take on Lee Bowyer’s side in the Championship.
Albion won 1-0 at The Valley last weekend as they set themselves up with an FA Cup fourth-round clash against Slaven Bilic’s former club West Ham courtesy of Kenneth Zohore’s first goal since August.
Zohore started that game as Bilic made 11 changes and the Baggies boss is likely to make wholesale changes once again this weekend to revert back to a more familiar line-up.
Sam Johnstone is predicted to replace Jonathan Bond in goals while a more familiar back-line of Conor Townsend, Kyle Bartley, Semi Ajayi and Darnell Furlong is also expected to start.
Jake Livermore and Romaine Sawyers are likely to start in the central midfield positions with Gareth Barry and Rekeem Harper dropping out.
West Brom could be boosted by the return of Grady Diangana this weekend as he is expected to recover from an injury that has seen him miss the last five matches.
Diangana could start on the left-wing with Matt Phillips on the right and Matheus Pereira in the central attacking midfield role.
Bilic could have a hit of a headache when it comes to selecting who to start up front at The Valley.
Hal Robson-Kanu has been the more influential forward this season but Charlie Austin has shown better goalscoring form in recent weeks.
And then there is Zohore, who scored and put in a man of the match worthy display against Charlton last week.
However we predict that Robson-Kanu will be the striker who gets the nod to start this weekend.
In other West Brom news, a Premier League club has enquired about this Albion first-team defender.