West Bromwich Albion welcome Burnley to The Hawthorns in Friday Night Football in 2022-23 Sky Bet Championship.
Victory could put West Brom as high as seventh in the table, whereas a win would see Burnley go top until Saturday afternoon.
Team News
Semi Ajayi is ruled out for West Brom after he suffered ankle ligament damage in Tuesday’s draw at Wigan.
Kean Bryan (knee) is still ruled out, but Callum Robinson has been sold to Cardiff City, having missed Tuesday’s match with a hamstring injury.
Burnley manager – Vincent Kompany could hand new signing, Anass Zaroury his first start for the club.
Arijanet Muric (shoulder) and Nathan Tella (fitness) are doubts following Tuesday’s win against Millwall, but Ashley Westwood (ankle), Scott Twine and Kevin Long (both knocks) remain absent.
Ian Maatsen is back in contention after he completed a three-match ban.
Stat Attack
- West Brom have lost just one of their last eight meetings against Burnley (W3, D4, L1).
- Burnley have won just one of their last 12 league visits to The Hawthorns (W1, D2, L9).
- Each of West Brom’s last two meetings against Burnley have finished goalless – which both came in 2020-21 Premier League season.
- West Brom are unbeaten in seven of their last eight league matches to be played on a Friday evening (W3, D4, L1).
- Burnley have won just one of their two Friday Night Football clashes this season (W1, L1), although both fixtures were played away from home.
Prediction
Having been held to a frustrating draw in a tightly fought contest at Wigan on Tuesday evening, West Brom really need to start making progress if they’re to fight for automatic promotion because this team is just making too many defensive mistakes despite their attacking quality.
One positive which they can take into this match is that their Friday Night Football form is excellent which should give them a morale boost, on top of having not lost any of their last four league games but they’re currently just drawing too many games at present.
Burnley meanwhile experienced a mini-rut in August with no wins in their first four league games of the month, yet they did well to scrape draws and now seem to have settled back into winning ways with Jay Rodriguez and Josh Brownhill in particular looking troublesome.
Now if Vincent Kompany’s Clarets can continue that rediscovered momentum and score first, I do fancy them to go on and win but West Brom do know how to scrape draws and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another score draw for the Baggies here.
Prediction: WBA 1-1 Burnley
Result: WBA 1-1 Burnley
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