Don Goodman: West Brom will struggle to catch Bournemouth and Fulham
By Daniel Feliciano.
West Brom lack the consistency to catch Championship leaders Fulham and Bournemouth in the chase for automatic promotion, according to Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman.
The Baggies currently sit in third place in the Championship table, six points behind Bournemouth and seven points behind leaders Fulham as they look to bounce back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
Valerien Ismael’s side has been good in spells this season, claiming ten wins from 21 games so far, however, they have only managed to pick up two wins from their last seven fixtures.
Goodman, who works as a commentator and pundit for Sky Sports, believes it’s this lack of consistency that will cost the Midlands side and others in their pursuit of the two top sides in the division.
Speaking on the official EFL podcast for Sky, he said, “If I’m honest with you based on what I’ve seen I’m genuinely not sure anyone else can (get near to and catch Fulham and Bournemouth).
“Although let’s play Devil’s advocate a little bit because what we must do is give the rest of the division hope, and we can do that by saying Fulham haven’t won any of their last three games, so they’ve had three draws, and Bournemouth have only won one of their last six games.
“So that in itself highlights that you can take points from these two, but you need to find consistency and the chasing pack at the moment, that’s the one thing, they’re all good teams, we’ve seen the likes of Queens Park Rangers, West Bromwich Albion, Stoke, Blackburn, we’ve seen them play super well, play really really well.
“Stoke for example gave one of the best performances I’ve seen this season, if not the best when they dismantled West Bromwich Albion who were in full flow at the time and then proceeded to lose the next three games and I think that’s what you’re dealing with, with the rest of them.”
Consistency.
West Brom won three of their first four games of the season but haven’t managed to win three games in a row since that period.
If they are to close the gap they will need to find consistency in order to string results together and make a real run at the automatic promotion places.
The season is long however and there is plenty of time for the club to get it right, so they should be encouraged by the fact they’re involved in the hunt at all at this stage.
As Goodman mentioned, the sides at the top have also been susceptible to slip-ups in results so the team that can show true consistency in the second half of the season is likely to be the one that pulls away at the end of it.
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