Brummie Road Ender
·12 December 2024
Brummie Road Ender
·12 December 2024
A first home win since September for the Baggies came with much relief to the home faithful and pushed Carlos Corberán’s team back into the top six. It also extended Albion’s unbeaten record to twelve games, the longest in the division, and brought their clean sheet total for the season to ten. It was the Baggies’ first midweek victory of the season with the previous being a 2-0 win over Rotherham United at the Hawthorns in April.
It was also Frank Lampard’s first defeat as Coventry City manager and his first defeat as a manager against Albion having completed a league double as Derby County boss in 2018/19 and presided over a 3-3 draw at the Hawthorns as Chelsea boss in September 2020 – he had been sacked before the Baggies won 5-2 at Stamford Bridge the following April.
This season’s record of 14 goals conceded in the opening 20 league games of a campaign has been bettered just once in the club’s history – game 20 of the 1908/09 season took place on Boxing Day 1908 and a 1-1 draw with Birmingham City kept Albion top of Division Two with Harry King’s goal for Blues being just the thirteenth goal conceded by the league leaders.
Game 21 has been successful for the Baggies in our comparison seasons with the last defeat coming back in 1999 when Brian Little’s team were beaten 2-0 at Crewe Alexandra. In the eleven second tier campaigns since then, Albion have won game 21 seven times including away from home for the past three years.