View: Worrying stat from Birmingham clash highlights issue West Brom must address before 20/21
Yesterday was a decidedly mixed bag for West Brom and their Championship promotion hopes.
On the one hand, Fulham’s late defeat against Brentford helped to reaffirm their place in the top two, and their own 0-0 draw against Birmingham City even moved them ahead of Leeds United on goal difference.
On the other, that stalemate represented two dropped points and a missed opportunity to land a haymaker in the race to secure a Premier League spot next season.
With that in mind, it’s little wonder that Slaven Bilic claimed that he was “not happy” with his side’s result on Saturday, even if he did admit that the table does look better because of it.
And one point in particular will have irked the boss.
To their credit, Birmingham defended nobly, and the scoreline goes a long way towards masking the true balance of the match.
The Baggies managed 20 shots to the Blues’ seven, as well as having 67% and registering 12 corners to their visitors’ three.
Most worrying, however, were the performances of Bilic’s strike force.
Of those 20 shots, just one came from a recognised centre-forward, and even then it was Kenneth Zohore header in the dying seconds that was so poor that it pretty much went out for a throw-in.
According to Wyscout, neither Hal Robson-Kanu or Charlie Austin managed a shot between them, despite clocking up a combined 98 minutes.
Granted, everybody has bad days at the office, but with so much at stake after such a long spell away, it’s surely not too much to ask for our strikers to be shooting.
It would be one thing if chances were hard to come by, but as the stats prove, Albion were just about on top for the vast majority of this one.
And while this issue might not be enough to derail our promotion bid, you would have to suggest that it must be addressed if and when we reach the Premier League.
It’s a disappointing reality, but our current crop of hitmen just won’t be up to the task in the top flight.
In other West Brom news, ‘Dreadful’, ‘Shocking’ – Many West Brom fans tear one player to shreds v Birmingham.