Football – England – Premier League
Saturday 12th April 2014 – Kickoff: 1507hrs
West Brom will be looking to post back-to-back wins in the Premier League for only the second time this season when they host Europa League hopefuls Tottenham at The Hawthorns on Saturday afternoon.
September last year was the last time West Brom put two wins on the trot on the board when they beat Sunderland at home 3-0 and followed that up with a 2-1 win at Old Trafford. I don’t think manager Steve Clarke would have envisaged picking up his P45 after guiding his side to a win over Manchester United, but the Scot has since been dismissed and replaced by Pepe Mel.
After a spate of draws, West Brom have recently beaten Swansea City and Norwich City last Saturday, a win that cost Canaries manager Chris Hughton his job, suffered losses to Manchester United and Hull City and drew with Cardiff City in a 3-3 goal bonanza.
However, when you focus on West Brom’s home results, they are dominated by stalemates with an overall record of 3-8-5 19/22 with 5 draws from their last 6 matches at The Hawthorns. It is just one win from their last eleven though which shouldn’t worry the visitors too much when they make their way to the west midlands.
Tottenham eased their way to all three points in Monday night’s 5-1 home win over hapless Sunderland despite going a goal down, but despite the fashion of that convincing win, it looks unlikely that incumbent manager Tim Sherwood will remain for next season with Saints’s manager Pochettino and Dutch national manager Van Gaal being touted as favourites to take over the White Hart Lane hot-seat.
Nevertheless, the target of achieving a Europa League qualifying slot remains Tottenham’s priority and that means picking up points against the bottom half teams such as today’s hosts West Brom. With three away defeats on the trot under their belts going into this afternoon’s encounter, a win at The Hawthorns becomes ever more important particularly with Manchester United just two points behind them and now out of next season’s Champions League following defeat to Bayern Munich.
West Brom have struggled to put teams away on their home ground and I believe we may well be in for another draw here today, but there is still that x-factor element that is Emmanuel Adebayor in the Spurs ranks and he might be the difference between the two sides today. I’ll lean towards the round ball on Tottenham which is still a good price though, but Spurs could win this perhaps 1-0.
Pick: Tottenham AH0 @ 1.70 Pinnacle
