View: West Brom should expose serious Swansea weakness to grab goals on Saturday
West Brom need to bounce back to winning ways as soon as possible to avoid slipping back into a rut they have only recently escaped out of.
Albion had won 16 points out of the 18 available to them before suffering a shock loss at home to Wigan on Saturday and then being knocked out of the FA Cup by Newcastle, also at home, on Tuesday.
Next up for the Baggies is an away trip to South Wales on Saturday when they will take on Swansea and this is a game where Slaven Bilic really needs to get his side back on track to avoid a dramatic loss in form similar to what they endured in December and January.
Swansea have had a pretty average season.
As it stands, they are ninth in the Championship standings and only four points away from the play-off places so there’ll definitely be hope at the Liberty Stadium that their season is not over yet.
Because of that, they could be a dangerous side for West Brom to face this weekend, especially as Albion have lost four of their last five trips to the Liberty.
But Swansea do have a major weakness as, according to WhoScored, no team in the Championship has conceded more goals from counter-attacks than they have this season [5].
While that is still a low number, it’s something that West Brom should try to expose with their pacey wide players on Saturday.
WyScout has listed 106 different counter-attacks by West Brom in all competitions this season.
WyScout says that 27.9 per cent of Albion’s counter-attacks have resulted in a shot at goal – including Jake Livermore’s goal in the 2-0 win against Preston last month.
For this goal, Albion burst out of the blocks with Jake Livermore after the midfielder won possession in his own defensive third.
Hal Robson-Kanu dropped deep from the forward position to link-up with Livermore on the halfway line before spraying the ball out to the right-wing, where the pacey Callum Robinson lay in wait.
Between Livermore winning possession and Robinson crossing the ball into the box, only 13 seconds had passed.
Robson-Kanu and Livermore continued their forward momentum to arrive in the penalty area where the Welsh forward chested Robinson’s cross down to Livermore to score.
Fast phases of play like this could be crucial in breaking down Swansea on Saturday.
As they’re the home side they’re bound to push forward a bit more against a Baggies side that have lost two matches on the bounce.
That could open up to these types of situations again with players bursting out of the defence, using Robson-Kanu’s willingness to come deep and link-up with the midfield and then making use of the pacey wide players.
Kamil Grosicki might get some more minutes in this game as he is widely seen as one of the fastest players in the Championship but is yet to start a game for West Brom.
But Matheus Pereira and Robinson are by no means slow on their feet and could be able to tear apart the Swans on Saturday.
In other West Brom news, Darren Fletcher has criticised the Baggies support on Tuesday night.