West Brom News speaking to Kevin Phillips

Fri 11 December 2020 17:10, UK

We’re delighted to welcome former West Brom striker Kevin Phillips as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns…

Kevin Phillips claims the wind could be in Newcastle United’s sails ahead of their clash against West Brom at St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon.

Newcastle saw their clash with Aston Villa postponed last week after a COVID-19 outbreak at the Tyneside club’s training ground.

However, earlier this week, Steve Bruce’s squad returned to training and the match against West Brom will take place despite doubts about whether it could go forward [BBC Sport].

While Phillips admits there could be some rustiness among Newcastle players after an extra week off due to the outbreak, the ex-West Brom striker also believes it could work in their favour as well as playing at home this weekend.

“It could work either way,” Phillips told West Brom News.

“I know as a player when you’ve had a long break and not been training with your team-mates, you can be rusty or the rest could do you the world of good. A few days of training together, doing tactical work and you’re in and at it so it can go either way.

“Newcastle will be delighted to be at home because they won’t have to do any travelling. I would image their tails will be up because they had a cracking result down at Palace before the Villa game was called off.

“They’ll be chomping at the bit and ready to go.”

Newcastle’s form has been inconsistent this season so even though they won 2-0 against Crystal Palace before the match against Villa was called off, it’s not as though Bruce’s men were building up a head of steam with that victory at Selhurst.

However, as Phillips pointed out, the break away from the training ground doesn’t mean that players haven’t been able to get tactically prepared to play the Baggies.

And based on the way Albion have played this season, it is not hard to out-think under-pressure manager Slaven Bilic.

Newcastle are also boosted by the absence of Matheus Pereira, who’s suspended after his red card in the 5-1 defeat to Palace last week.

Even though Bruce has a number of players unavailable, there are no guarantees of the Baggies getting a positive result this weekend.

In other West Brom news, Bilic faces a make or break weekend when the Baggies take on Newcastle.

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