Michael Owen predicts West Brom defeat to Southampton despite being wowed by Chelsea win
Michael Owen predicts West Brom will be beaten by Southampton on Monday despite being impressed with Albion’s performance against Chelsea last week.
The Baggies have won just two games at home this season and Southampton returned to winning ways with a 3-2 win over Burnley last week.
And Owen thinks the combination of Danny Ings and James Ward-Prowse will pose West Brom too many problems.
He told BetVictor, “The return of Danny Ings proved to be inspirational as Southampton fought back to win 3-2 after going behind 2-0 to Burnley last weekend.
“With the exceptional service from James Ward-Prowse, there’s a now clear route to goal with the return of the talismanic Ings.
“West Brom yet again fully endorsed their tag as Chelsea’s bogey team as they pulled off an utterly remarkable 5-2 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
“That could go down as the result of the season; however, I do believe that the Saints are back on track. Again, it could be a tight one, but I’m siding with the Saints to march home with the points.”
Don’t underestimate us
Ings and Ward-Prowse are both very good, international standard players, so we understand why Owen thinks they will be a threat.
However, he seems to ignore just how good we have been at the back in recent weeks.
We have conceded only five goals in seven games and the Chelsea match last week was the last time we have let in more than one goal in a game since the Tottenham game in February.
Last week was a rare match too and we arguably only conceded a second due to how expansive we were.
Albion will not play in the same style against Saints, and we expect the likes of Okay Yokuslu and Kyle Bartley to frustrate Ings.
The striker has two goals and one assist in five games against West Brom, so he can be stopped if we can get our tactics right.
Suffocating the service to him will be key so we need our midfield trio to show energy and intensity.
Manage that and we should earn a clean sheet.
Combine that with some more magic from Matheus Pereira and Callum Robinson and we could even earn back-to-back wins for the first time this season.
In other West Brom news, a billionaire-owned club are showing interest in a “sensational” Baggies star.
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