Tony Pulis’ West Bromwich Albion travel to the Stadium of Light on Saturday to take on struggling Sunderland. With the start Sunderland have had to their season, it looks like the Black Cats will be experiencing another long hard campaign battling for their lives to save relegation. They are at the rock bottom of the table now with just one point from six games. Things are not looking promising for the Wearside club and West Brom can realistically rub more salt to their wounds.
The Baggies have experienced a decent start to their season and have collected eight points from six games and are sitting 10th right now. They are on the back of a 1-1 draw against Stoke City from the last weekend where the players showed a great desire to come back from 1-0 down and salvage one point.
With one draw and five losses from their first six games, Sunderland need to improve really soon or else they might not be able to save themselves at the end of the season.
Here is the predicted West Brom line-up against Sunderland.
Defence
Ben Foster will definitely start under the bar ahead of Boaz Myhill. Craig Dawson will keep his place in the right-back position. West Brom are likely to stick with the centre-back pairing of Gareth McAuley and Jonny Evans. Everton loanee Brendan Galloway will keep his place in the left-back position.
The Baggies have always been a solid defensive unit but have not looked at their best so far this season and need to improve in the coming weeks. Pulis will be demanding a clean sheet from his back-line especially against the struggling Sunderland side.
Midfield
Argentine defensive midfield Claudio Yacob will continue to play as the defensive midfielder. The 29-year-old is a key player at the Hawthorns with his excellent defensive abilities. Pulis’ 4-1-4-1 asks a lot of hard work from the midfield enforcer and he hardly lets his boss down. Skipper Darren Fletcher and Nacer Chadli will line up as the two box to box midfielders.
James McClean and Matt Phillips should start on the two flanks. Chadli and McClean were superb in the 4-2 win against West Ham prior to last week but did not look sharp against Stoke and Pulis will demand more consistency from them.
Attack
Jose Salomon Rondon will keep his place up front with two goals in his last two games. The Venezuela international worked very hard against Stoke to get his side a point from the game and he should keep his place with ease.
