West Brom take on Leeds United on Friday night at Elland Road – earlier this week we hosted our weekly Q&A to discuss all things Albion
West Brom head to Leeds United on Friday night looking to back up their win over Swansea City last time out with another victory – this time at newly relegated Leeds United. Albion haven’t been to Elland Road since the final day of Sam Allardyce’s reign – he’s even managed Leeds in the meantime – having struggled in their attempts to return to the top flight.
It’ll be a reunion for Carlos Corberan, who hasn’t been back at the club since leaving Marcelo Bielsa’s side to embark on his own managerial adventure when appointed Huddersfield Town manager in 2020, but emotions will be set aside for at least 90 minutes as the Baggies eye a first away win of the new season.
As is the case each week, Joe Chapman and Matt Davies caught up on our dedicated Albion Facebook page to discuss formation, transfers and whether now is an opportune moment to be facing Leeds in the Championship calendar.
You’d be torn. It was a necessity that he had to go with the back three on Saturday. I expected him to maybe go back to a back four and change the personnel. He kept faith with Kipre, who had a difficult afternoon at Blackburn, and he was much better on Saturday – as was Ajayi, he was my man of the match.
Erik Pieters playing on the left was a boost to the other two, because he’s an experienced head, does the job asked of him, brings balance being left footed and they all complemented each other really well, but Carlos wants to play a back three when he decides to, rather than it being necessity because of the circumstances.
Because Thomas-Asante was injured at Stoke and you couldn’t play Maja for more than 15 minutes, he needed to look elsewhere; because he went with Phillips and opted to play John Swift on the left, he wasn’t left with any other way. He went with a back three, used Furlong and Townsend as wing backs and it did work for a long period – it did seem to suit them.
Carlos is keen to be adaptable and flexible from one week to the next, based on the opponent. You’d like to be in a situation where he can have all players available and in any given week, working on any given opponent, he can utilise any system. For Leeds away, we’ll see on Thomas-Asante and Maja will have had another week of training under his belt, but I’d be tempted to stick with a back three. They looked pretty well balanced.
READ: Leeds United hit by injury crisis amid transfer demand and ‘smashed’ West Brom prediction
READ: Daniel Farke ‘critical’ of Leeds United players before West Brom clash
Still hoping to be busy before the deadline?
They’re definitely working on it. Everyone at the club and in the fanbase knows how difficult it is. They’re two or three players short. With a couple of weeks left of the window, it’s going to be classic Albion, in the sense that they’re probably going to be still looking to do deals on the 1st of September.
They need another full back option. They could do with another number ten – if anything was to happen to John Swift in a 4-2-3-1, they haven’t really got a natural option. They have three centre forwards at the club, but their fitness levels are all quite patchy and certainly in Daryl Dike’s case he’s not likely going to be back until January. They’ll probably have to muddle through.
They’ve got plenty of centre halves and plenty of midfielders, but I think he’d probably quite like another winger – they’ve brought Sarmiento in and have Wallace, Phillips is versatile, but Reach is out for a while and Diangana’s future is pretty uncertain. There are still two or three gaps in the squad that could do with being filled.
Hopefully this next week or so it’ll be stepped up, and that’ll hopefully involve the outgoings as well. We know Albion must raise money. If they get an offer for any player, at this moment, I’d suggest they’ll have to consider it. It’s where they’re at financially. If that meant considering an offer for Okay Yokuslu, or Jayson Molumby, or Alex Palmer, they’d have to.
Any worries Corberan might walk away?
I don’t think so, no. I know to an extent he has previous with Huddersfield, but that was at a point when they were selling players, but right now I don’t think Carlos is in a position where he would walk away. He’s constantly talked about how proud he is to be manager of the club.
Even recently he mentioned the honours board at The Hawthorns, where they list all the previous captains and internationals and managers, how proud he is to be on it and how he hopes to be on it for many years. He signed a new deal in February, around the same time he was linked with the Leeds job and it’s very difficult…there’s so much money in football nowadays.
Can you afford to resign? He’s on the longest contract of anyone at the club, which runs until 2027. That’s a lot of security he’d be walking away from. I know it’s frustrating, it’s frustrating for everyone involved, but he has been made well aware that this is the job, this is the situation we’re in as a football club. He’s been willing to take that challenge on.
Good time to play Leeds?
Maybe. Albion have had a pretty tough start to be honest. Swansea looked like they’ll be a good team. I’m a big fan of Michael Duff, I think he’ll do a good job and pick up where Russell Martin left off. Of the three that have come down, Leeds are the ones I have a question mark over.
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