The 32nd round of Championship will bring us an interesting match between West Brom and Nottingham Forest at The Hawthorns, the home of West Brom. This will mark the 2nd H2H match between these two teams with the most recent taking place on August 7th 2018 ending in a draw.
West Brom are currently 4th in the league, only 5 points from the top 2 spot which would see them returning to the Premier League. The season still has plenty of matches to go, so West Brom’s ultimate goal to finish top 2 just might not be unreachable. Looking at West Brom recent form, they are 2-1-2 in their last 5 games. They have played a draw against Norwich (1:1), lost to Blackburn (2:1) as well as Middlesbrough (2:3) and won against Bolton (0:2) and most recently against Stoke (0:1). While it’s a decent record, West Brom have not won a home match in the last 3, instead, they finished 2 in a draw and lost the most recent home match against Middlesbrough. On the bright side, West Brom has one of the strongest attacks in the league (60 goals in 30 games), but somewhat underperform in the defensive end. Despite that, there has been some improvement in their defensive department.
Nottingham Forest are coming into this match as a heavy underdog, which is fair. As the 9th team in the Championship and an overall record of 11-12-8, Nottingham are far from impressive this season and while there are still plenty of games left to play this season, anything more than mid-table finish for this side is unlikely in my opinion. Looking at their recent games, Nottingham has lost to Reading (2:0), Bristol City (0:1), Birmingham (2:0) and won against Wigan (3:1) and Brentford (2:1). The biggest weakness of Nottingham is their away games, where they have not won a match since November 24th, which translates to 7 winless away games and 4 consecutive defeats on the road.
West Brom has a clear advantage in the upcoming match, especially with Nottingham poor performances in their away games. However, this match will be highly important for both sides to win. West Brom needs to win it to come closer to the top 2 spot in the league, while a win here would see Nottingham closing to the top 6 spot. At the moment Nottingham are 5 points behind Bristol who is 6th, so a win here would see Nottingham only 2 points from the playoffs. So what do we expect to happen in this match? Looking at how these two teams performed this season this one should spell out a high scoring match. West Brom has scored 7 goals and conceded 6 in their last 5 games, while Nottingham has scored 5 and conceded 7. I do believe West Brom will has a good chance to go on and win the match, however, Nottingham will not go down without fighting. Expect an intense match between two sides who desperately need points to achieve their season goals.
Prediction: Over 2.5 goals
Odds: 1.89 Asianodds
