Mowbray must unlock Baggies potential as run-in ramps up

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·28 Maret 2025

Mowbray must unlock Baggies potential as run-in ramps up

Norwich City v West Bromwich Albion; Carrow Road, Saturday 29th March 2025, 3pm

Tony Mowbray takes his team to Norfolk on Saturday still looking for the right combination to bring the best out of what is a group of undoubtedly talented attacking players. As a unit, they have played some great football at times but have failed to unlock defences often enough, and it is a quandary that the head coach needs to solve if Albion are to mount a realistic promotion challenge.

The race to the play-offs outside of the top four has been defined by inconsistency this season, and it is on track to be the lowest ever points tally needed to make the top six. The current lowest is 68 points by Leicester City in 2013 who were also in sixth spot with eight games to go, but with 59 points, two more than the Baggies currently have.

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The inability for the teams around Albion to put decent runs together suggests that they have a great chance of making the play-offs even without a significant improvement, and form can go out of the window when those games come about but, based on their current results, the Baggies are short of what is needed to earn promotion.

Having watched the vast majority of Albion’s games this season, I would suggest the main reason for that is that they don’t score enough goals and, more importantly, don’t create enough goalscoring chances. I’d like to think that few observers would disagree, and the stats back it up. xG, the best stat we have for judging the quality of chances created, puts Albion 11th in the table at just over 50, not too far from their actual goals of 47. As a comparison, Saturday’s opponents, Norwich City, are 5th with just under 57, in line with their actual goal tally while another play-off hopeful, Coventry City, are second with an xG of nearly 65 but have scored only 54. Leeds United unsurprisingly lead the way with an xG of 76.42.

However, when you look at the likes of Mikey Johnston, Adam Armstrong, Tom Fellows, John Swift and Grady Diangana, not to mention an attacking head coach in Tony Mowbray, it is something of a mystery as to why it is not quite working. With Mogga only eleven games into his tenure, I guess a little more patience is required but I do feel that he needs to try something different. Only once, in his first home game against Portsmouth, have Albion scored more than twice in a game since his return, and he has persisted with Adam Armstrong as his central striker in all but one game since the Saints striker joined with limited success.

Armstrong has not played poorly and he hasn’t missed a host of chances. He has scored twice compared to an xG of 2.52 in his eight games suggesting he is a little below par, but I don’t believe we are seeing the best of him. For Southampton last season, he scored 21 Championship goals but was playing as a wide striker more often than centrally, off either flank, and I would like to see someone else given a shot in middle. Either Lankshear or Dike, if he is fit enough to start, would offer a more physical presence at centre forward and, if Armstrong could play in one of the wide positions. Only once, at Millwall, has Mowbray tried this, coming in for criticism for doing so from some quarters, but Armstrong’s relative ineffectiveness as a centre forward since then warrants another look at that option in my opinion.

The international break will have given Mowbray his longest time on the training field with the squad since his arrival, and I wonder whether we will see some new ideas. Obviously, he didn’t have all his players available to him with Isaac Price impressing for the GAWA, Mikey Johnston with the Republic of Ireland, Diangana in Africa with DR Congo and Torbjørn Heggem with Norway. That could mean Tom Fellows, who was disappointingly left out of the England U21 squad that played at the Hawthorns, may have a better chance of starting at Carrow Road meaning, if Mowbray does look to push Armstrong wide, it may be Johnston that drops out. Karlan Grant is, of course, also vying for that position but I would be surprised to see Armstrong left out altogether.

There was good news from Thursday’s press conference in that Callum Styles, who had to pull out of the Hungarian squad with a calf issue, is back in full training and Tammer Bany is also available again having been suffering with a minor knock before the break. The bad news was that Josh Maja is only likely to play again this season if it is extended into the play-offs.

Saturday’s opponents have almost dropped out of the play-off picture having won just one of their last eight games and losing their last two at home to Sheffield Wednesday and away to Bristol City. Canaries fans will have hoped that the return of Josh Sargent from a lengthy injury absence would have sparked them into a late run and, despite the American having scored eight goals in nine starts since recovering from groin surgery, it hasn’t translated into a consistent run of form. City do have a habit of scoring a lot of goals in a few games having scored four or more goals in six occasions in this campaign, more than any other Championship team, but only six clubs have conceded more than the Canaries’ 54 goals against. Sargent’s run of goals this year has seen him move level with Josh Maja on 12 goals for the campaign but City’s Borja Sainz still leads the chart with 17 having scored in each of their last two games, his first goals since November.

Thorup’s team really need three points if they are to retain even an outside hope of a top six spot, but with six teams between them and the play-off positions, it is a tall order for them to match last season’s finish. A 4-0 aggregate defeat to Leeds United in the semi-finals last May saw David Wagner surprisingly sacked, and it will be interesting to see what fate awaits Johannes Thorup should he fail to match the German’s achievements.

Albion, of course, are looking for their first away win since November and taking all three points away from Carrow Road would be a huge boost to their play-off hopes. The latest Opta Predictions give the Baggies a 62% chance of finishing in the top six while Bristol City, who are only outside the top six on goal difference, are given only a 38% chance due to their difficult run-in – they are still to visit both Burnley and Leeds United as well as facing Albion, Watford and Sunderland at home.

Based on the Opta Analyst, this match is the most difficult to predict of the fixtures this weekend with Norwich give a 39% chance of victory and Albion 34.4% – sounds like it will be another draw then. But, as Mowbray said in his interview with the BBC this week, Albion need to start winning away from home and there is no better time to start than now.

History

Saturday will see the 30th league meeting between the clubs at Carrow Road with Albion having won more than they have lost, although if you add in cup games, the Canaries are slightly ahead in the record on their own turf. The Baggies’ 2-0 defeat on their last trip to Norfolk was only the second time they have been beaten in their last nine visits in the league.

Albion won 2-1 on both of their visits to Carrow Road under Tony Mowbray in his first spell. In April 2007, goals from Sam Sodje and Diomansay Kamara saw them overturn a 1-0 deficit late on, while a year later, goals from Robert Koren and Zoltán Gera put the visitors 2-0 before a Ched Evans penalty gave the hosts some late, but ultimately unfulfilled, hope.

Founder Members of Division Three (South), the Canaries didn’t encounter Albion in the league until the Throstles’ relegation to Division Two in 1938. The first league meeting at Carrow Road was in the September of that year with Albion winning 3-2 with goals from Harry Jones and Meynell Burgin (2). City were relegated that year and the Baggies next trip to Carrow Road was for the clubs’ first top flight meeting in November 1972 when Norwich recorded their first ever win over Albion, a 2-0 victory with Dave Stringer and Graham Paddon scoring the goals for Ron Saunders’ team.

In fact, Norwich remained unbeaten at home against Albion throughout the 1970s and the Baggies’ next win at Carrow Road was on Valentine’s Day, 1981, with Cyrille Regis and Gary Owen scoring in a 2-0 victory. Albion have never won by more than two goals at Carrow Road with their biggest victory at the venue coming in February 1997 when a hat trick from Paul Peschisolido and another from Richard Sneekes saw the visitors win 4-2.

The only other time that Albion have scored four at Norwich was in their most recent victory at Carrow Road in August 2018. In a remarkable game, the hosts took the lead through Jordan Rhodes before a Jay Rodriguez double, one of which was from the spot, and another goal from Harvey Barnes put Albion 3-1 up. Teemu Pukki reduced the arrears before Hal Robson-Kanu made it 4-2, and then Grant Hanley scored another for the Canaries to make the final eight minutes more interesting. The visitors held on to claim all three points.