da dobrowin： West Bromwich Albion are back on top of the Championship table after they came from behind to defeat Birmingham City in the west Midlands derby on Saturday afternoon.
da betsson： Later that day, Leeds United dropped points at home to Cardiff City, meaning the Baggies leapfrogged them into first place and created a gap of two points.
Slaven Bilic’s side needed some fortunes themselves as Charlie Austin’s introduction almost single-handedly gave Albion all three points.
The 30-year-old came on and scored an eight-minute brace to turn the game right around – first, he teed up his own half-volley from outside the area before heading home at the back post after a piece of movement a Premier League striker would have been proud of.
On the Chalkboard
Usually, Austin’s introduction would be at the expense of Hal Robson-Kanu as the Croatian primarily operates a system with one number nine in the attack, but at St Andrew’s he kept them both on the pitch.
This could well open up the possibility of a new formation in the future, although it comes at one expense.
Both Austin and Robson-Kanu are in the form of their life right now. The former Southampton man has scored six goals in his last five appearances while the latter has bagged six goals in 11 matches.
It would be silly to keep selecting one over the other when they are both red hot right now, both offer completely different things to the team too so pairing them up could be rather interesting.
Austin is more of an old school predatory-type while Robson-Kanu’s relentless work rate and ability to cause a nuisance can counter-balance that perfectly.
However, a 4-4-2 formation would mean that one member of Bilic’s engine room gets dropped. It can’t be Matheus Pereira after 15 goal contributions and an average of 2.3 key passes per game.
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It’ll be hard to drop Jake Livermore too given he can be the defensive anchor to the Brazilian’s playmaking ability – the 30-year-old is averaging 1.9 tackles per game in midfield.
Therefore, Romaine Sawyers, who has been fantastic all season would have to make way.
At the very least, it’s a ‘plan B’ to consider going forward.
And in other news, Matt Wilson has given his thoughts on the situation following their win over Birmingham…