Baggies without Furlong for trip to Wearside

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·25 November 2024

Baggies without Furlong for trip to Wearside

Sunderland v West Bromwich Albion; The Stadium of Light, Tuesday 26th November 2024, 8pm

Albion travel to Wearside on Tuesday evening to face the team that is probably the Championship’s surprise package this season. Having finished in the top six two seasons ago, Sunderland struggled to a lowly 16th place finish in May and few expected them to be leading the way in the current campaign, albeit they dropped to second place after the weekend’s results.

Frenchman, Régis Le Bris, took over at the Stadium of Light in the summer and certainly looks to have steadied what looked to be a very unstable ship last season. Like Albion, they started the season well winning their first four league games before suffering a surprise defeat at Plymouth. Watford are the only other team to beat them in the Championship this season but, having been five points clear at the end of October, four successive draws in November have seen the chasing pack catch them up and Leeds moved above them on Sunday following their dramatic victory at Swansea.

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Le Bris has managed to keep a fairly consistent line up with seven players having featured in 15 of their 16 Championship games this season, albeit centre-back Luke O’Nien is their only ever-present. The Black Cats’ top goalscorer is Frenchman, Wilson Isidor, who joined on a season-long loan from Zenit St Petersburg with an option to buy. The 24-year-old has found the net five times this season, most recently in the 2-2 draw with Coventry City in their last home game, while 21-year-old left winger, Romaine Mundle, has four goals.

Who Mundle will be up against is up in the air somewhat after Darnell Furlong picked up his fifth yellow card against Norwich and will be suspended for the trip to Sunderland. The card itself seemed unduly harsh to me, particularly given some of the foul challenges from visiting players that the referee had not carded up to that point, but there a precious few good referees in the Championship these days.

The only other senior player in the squad with experience of playing right back is Mason Holgate, but with Bartley, McNair and Ajayi unavailable through injury, it leaves Corberán with something of a dilemma. There are a number of options, but none of them ideal. He could switch Holgate out to full back and either bring in someone from the U23 squad, or play either Diakité or Račić at centre-back, but I don’t think either midfielder has any experience in the centre of defence. He could also bring one of U23s in at right back – Reece Hall, who plays at centre-back for the U23s, did play at right back in the EFL Cup tie at Fleetwood earlier this season. Gianluca Frabotta is the only other senior defender available, but I’m not sure that he has ever played anywhere other than on the left side. The same could be said of Callum Styles.

It’s certainly bad timing for the Baggies. Not only are they playing one of the division’s form teams, but it also comes off the back of an unusually shaky defensive performance against Norwich. Albion did manage to score two, doubling their season’s tally of Hawthorns goals, but neither of the visitors’ goals was particularly pretty from a defensive point of view even if both were ultimately down to some clever play from City.

Other than whatever changes Corberán decides to make to cover for the absence of Furlong, I expect the same attacking set up at Sunderland – Maja, Fellows, Johnston and Mowatt were all withdrawn on Saturday, presumably to give them a little rest ahead of this match, so I’d be surprised to see any of those left out. Karlan Grant, meanwhile, was substituted late on but put in another excellent performance and was unfortunate not to have the goal he deserved. The ball did hit appear to hit his arm but it had little impact on the path of the ball but, with the rules as they are today, the referee was right to rule it out. Unless Corberán opts for a formation change, the same front five should play.

Current form suggests the match will finish as a draw – Albion have drawn seven of their last eight games while Sunderland are on a nine-match unbeaten run but have drawn the last four matches. A point would be a good result for the Baggies but, sitting as they do on top of the away table, perhaps they should be looking to become the first visiting team to win at the Stadium of Light this season.

As Corberán has said in recent weeks, no game in the Championship is easy, but every game is winnable.

History

Albion have lost their last three games against Sunderland but lost only one of the previous sixteen encounters stretching back to 2009.

None of the current Sunderland squad have previously played for the Baggies, but there are a few in the Albion ranks who have previously played for the Black Cats. Callum Styles had a loan spell on Wearside earlier this year and actually registered an assist to Pierre Ekwah’s winner at the Hawthorns in April, while Paddy McNair spent two years with Sunderland before he moved down the coast to Middlesbrough.

Josh Maja is perhaps the best known former Black Cat at the Hawthorns and he will not remember his last visit to the Stadium of Light with any fondness – the challenge by Dan Ballard that should have received a red card led to Maja missing four months of the season and there was extra salt in the wounds when Ballard scored the winner. I’m sure Maja will be eager to perform on Tuesday evening.

Plenty of players have moved between the clubs over the years with the most recent notable direct transfer being that of Victor Anichebe who moved from Albion to Sunderland in the summer of 2016. Stéphane Sessègnon moved from Wearside to the Hawthorns in September 2013 with Craig Gardner following him a year later, while Danny Dichio made the same move, initially on loan, in August 2001. Other memorable names that moved in the opposite direction include Billy Jones who moved north in July 2014, Paul McShane who opted to leave Albion after the play-off defeat in 2007 to join the Wearsiders, Kevin Kilbane who moved to the Black Cats for £2.5m in December 1999, and Don Goodman, who became Sunderland’s record signing when Denis Smith signed him in December 1991 for around £850,000.

There are plenty of players who have played for both clubs without a direct transfer, of course. Yann M’Vila, who spent last season at the Hawthorns, was on loan at Sunderland for the 2015/16 campaign while Jonny Evans, who is back plying his trade at Manchester United, had two loan spells at the Stadium of Light from Old Trafford early in his career.

Kevin Phillips, of course, made his name in the Premier League with Sunderland before moving to the Hawthorns after a spell at Aston Villa, while Kieran Richardson eventually moved from United to Sunderland in 2007, two years after his heroics in Albion’s Great Escape. Alex Pritchard, another loan player at the Baggies, also moved to Sunderland later in his career, spending two and a half seasons on Wearside from 2021.

James McClean started his career in England at Sunderland in 2011, moving to Albion from Wigan Athletic in 2014 while another Latics wide player, Callum McManaman, spent a season with Sunderland after leaving the Hawthorns in 2017.

Darren Carter, who is remembered for a wonder goal against Arsenal in 2005, was on loan at Sunderland from Blues a couple of years earlier while Bernt Haas, also remembered for a fine volley, his against Manchester United in 2003, had spent a season at the Stadium of Light in 2001/02.

Colin West, who was sent off for Swansea City in the play-off semi-final against Albion in 1993 having moved to south Wales from Albion the previous summer, started his career at Sunderland spending four seasons with the Wearsiders in the early eighties.

Going back a little further in time for our older readers, one of Ron Atkinson’s signings in 1979, Peter Barnes, went on to have a nomadic career that included a brief spell at Roker Park – he made one appearance for Sunderland away to Swindon Town in February 1989 – and Jimmy Nicholl, who spent a couple of seasons at the Hawthorns in the mid-eighties, had a brief spell on loan at Sunderland from Manchester United in 1981.