View: 25y/o crucial to West Brom form has rare off-day v Swansea
Since joining West Brom on loan in January, Callum Robinson has been one of the most exciting players to watch in the Championship.
In his first seven appearances for the Baggies, Robinson scored twice, supplied one assist and played a major role in helping the club lift themselves out of the rut they were in before he arrived.
However Robinson went completely off the boil in the 0-0 draw at Swansea on Saturday with the 25-year-old having very little impact in the West Brom attack.
According to stats by WyScout, Robinson had just one shot at goal, made 26 passes and attempted just one dribble in the goalless draw at the Liberty Stadium.
All of those stats were down on his average numbers for the Baggies with Robinson averaging 4.4 shots, 37.15 passes and 6.02 dribbles per game.
Robinson was left pretty much stranded out on the left-wing, and that is proven when comparing his heatmaps from different appearances this season.
Below is his heatmap for the draw at Swansea and, as you can see, he was stuck out wide for a lot of the match and never really got into the opposition penalty area.
The next heatmap is from Robinson’s performance in the 2-2 draw against Nottingham Forest at The Hawthorns last month.
It is clear that the on-loan Sheffield United winger covered a lot more of the pitch, played in a far more advanced role and used his ability to cut inside and get plenty of touches inside the Forest penalty box.
Unsurprisingly, Robinson scored in this game.
When Robinson scored against Forest, he was in a much more narrower position – one that he barely occupied at Swansea because he was stuck so far out wide.
For the goal, Matheus Pereira won possession in Forest’s defensive-third and straight away had Hal Robson-Kanu and Robinson making runs down the centre.
West Brom seem to play a lot better when their wide players come inside more often and that is a big reason why Robson-Kanu is the starting striker.
Robson-Kanu’s hold-up play and ability to drag defenders out of position help bring the wingers into play, but that just didn’t happen in South Wales.
It is hard to pinpoint why that happened but West Brom’s form dips when their wide players are not performing well.
Before Robinson joined the Baggies, Bilic had not seen his side win in any of the seven matches Grady Diangana had missed since his arrival from West Ham in the summer.
Clearly, Albion’s form seems to rely heavily on how well the wingers play.
In other West Brom news, Kevin Phillips has been raving about this Baggies midfielder.