Baggies hoping to bounce back at Millwall

Brummie Road Ender

·14 de febrero de 2025

Baggies hoping to bounce back at Millwall

Millwall v West Bromwich Albion; The Den, Saturday 15th February 2025, 3pm

Albion travel to south London on Saturday hoping to respond to their failure to record back-to-back wins for the first time since September against Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday. Far from being disturbed by their head coach’s impending departure, the Rovers players looked far more motivated than their Albion counterparts and the Baggies slumped to a disappointing defeat.

It’s been something of a rollercoaster since Mowbray returned to the Hawthorns with each encouraging victory followed by a disappointing defeat. After dominating the game and getting a deserved victory last Saturday, Albion looked well off the pace on Wednesday evening with few, if any, players emerging with any credit. Misplaced passes, a lack of awareness and organisation at the back and a lack of threat in the attacking third were horrible reminders of the Steve Bruce era, and we can only hope that it is nothing more than a blip. It will take time for Mowbray to mould the side into the one he wants, and he is still learning what the players are capable of, but a repeat of Wednesday night’s display will send alarm bells ringing.

OneFootball Videos

Having said that, football is a game of fine margins and there were a few moments that could have changed everything, not least Albion’s two disallowed goals. Having been on the wrong end of a controversial penalty decision that transformed the game at Plymouth, the decision to disallow would have been an equaliser for Adam Armstrong was incredibly harsh given what the referee allowed to go unpunished at other times, while Lankshear was unfortunate to have another ruled out moments later for an admittedly correct offside decision. Had either of those counted, you feel it would have given Albion the impetus to go on and win the game, but Rovers added a second on the break and the game was all but over.

In his post-match comments, Mowbray bemoaned the absence of Kyle Bartley as one of the big characters whose presence on the pitch might have helped as things started to go wrong. Albion certainly look a stronger defensive unit when he is in the side, but he will remain sidelined for a further two games. Mogga does have the option of bringing Semi Ajayi back into the side, albeit the Nigerian hasn’t played since October other than 45 minutes with the PL2 side on Monday. Holgate has done a decent job and, if anything, the player in the back four whose performance levels have dropped off a little recent is Darnell Furlong. However, the starting point for those levels was very high, so it is difficult to criticise too much. Perhaps putting the familiar figure of Ajayi next to him in defence will help, and the 31-year-old still has the advantage of pace in his locker that doesn’t seem to have diminished over the years. Let’s also not forget that with Semi in the side for the first 12 games of the campaign, Albion conceded just seven goals and recorded seven clean sheets.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the defeat to Blackburn was the lack of chances conjured by the forward line. Having looked much better following the introduction of Johnston and Fellows on Saturday, Mowbray started with them against Blackburn but also sacrificed Diangana to keep his midfield three of Mowatt, Molumby and Price together. It evidently didn’t really work and it will be interesting to see what he does at Millwall. Grant was unavailable due to illness but will hopefully be back in contention.

The performance of Joe Wildsmith also came in for criticism and he should probably shoulder an element of blame for both goals although, in my opinion, neither was a horrendous error. For the first, it was an excellent strike which came at Wildsmith very quickly with Furlong obscuring his view – it looked worse because it did hit him before going in but it would have been an outstanding reaction save had he kept it out. The second looked bad because he went to meet the ball and then retreated – I don’t think he would have got there had he continued, and his excursion didn’t really impact his ability to stop the eventual shot. Had he continued, he may well have just been stranded or conceded a penalty – both would have looked worse. For me, no head coach will be looking to drop a ‘keeper for those incidents.

And so to Saturday’s opponents, Millwall. They, too, are reeling having been thumped 5-1 at Plymouth in midweek to bring a run of four successive wins crashing to an end. That run included winning away to an admittedly under-strength Leeds United side in the FA Cup which followed narrow wins over Luton Town, Portsmouth and QPR. The Lions also won four successive games in the autumn, but followed that with six games without a win, so they definitely seem to be a bit streaky this season.

Alex Neil took over at the Den just after Christmas replacing Neil Harris who had stepped down earlier in December. His league record is won three, drawn two and lost three, but they have progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup where they will face local rivals Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. They sit in 14th place in the table but only seven points behind the Baggies so will feel they are still in with a shout of the play-offs.

Their season is largely built on a strong defence – they have conceded just 32 goals in their 31 league games in this campaign, the fewest of any side outside the top six. However, only bottom-placed Luton Town have a smaller number than the 30 that the Lions have in the “goals for” column. Duncan Watmore is their top scorer with just five while joint second-best scorer, Romain Esse, moved to Crystal Palace for a fee rumoured to be in excess of £12m in January. That enabled Alex Neil to bring in seven new players including Aaron Connolly from Sunderland, Luke Cundle from Wolves and Ajay Matthews from Boro’.

Given the Baggies’ record at Millwall, just one win there since 1987, a victory would be an excellent result. Albion have the players to be able to win the game comfortably but they lack the consistency to predict what might happen. That inconsistency is a disease affecting all the promotion chasing teams outside the top four means that Tony Mowbray’s team are still well placed for a top six spot – every point counts and I’d probably take one from this match.

History

Albion are currently on a run of seven matches without a win against Millwall dating back to the 2-0 win at the Den during Storm Ciara in February 2020. The last four games have all finished level, three of them goalless, while the Baggies’ two trips to Brrmondsey in 2022 both ended in defeat.

The recent run has kept the Lions ahead in the head-to-head record with 19 wins to 15 in all competitions while at Millwall, they have won 13 matches to Albion’s 5. That 2-0 win under Slaven Bilić is the Baggies’ only victory at Millwall’s new home with their previous victory coming back in 1987 when the diminutive Scottish striker, Bobby Williamson, scored the only goal of the game.

For Albion’s previous win at Millwall, you have to go back another four decades to October 1946 when the Baggies came back from a goal down to win 2-1 thanks to an 88th minute goal from Davy Walsh. On their previous visit, before World War II, Albion recorded their best even win at Cold Blow Lane when goals from Sammy Heaselgrave, Sandy McNab, Ike Clarke and Harry Jones (2) saw the visitors run out 5-1 winners.

The Lions’ biggest win over Albion was in October 1990 when a Teddy Sheringham hat trick and another goal from Alex Rae saw the hosts win 4-1 – Colin West scored the Baggies’ consolation.