Ahead of Albion's 2-0 Boxing Day win here at the Hawthorns over Wigan Athletic I wrote ..........

 

 

Wigan are 0-1-8 on the road and play a very offensive style of football under Paul Cook and as admirable as that is, it is hard to see it ending well today, with Albion sure to get a lot of space to exploit and really build some momentum before a big holiday crowd, no new issues for the home side, Athletic remain without several key players.

 

Jay Rodriguez (pictured) scored both goals, the win came at a cost with injury to Dwight Gayle, but it was an ultra professional performance with Wigan not having a real attempt of note until the 86th minute. The win, which came in front of a crowd of over 25,000 took Albion to within three points of an automatic promotion spot and with the Baggies having arguably the easiest fixture today of the top 3, another chance to make up some ground. Gayles' hamstring injury is not as bad as at first thought and he is still being considered for today, but I suspect he will be rested until the New Year fixture.

 

Wednesday have gone significantly backwards over the last two seasons after coming very close to promotion in both 2016 and 2017. The money has largely run out for what had been the big spending Owls and after finishing 15th last season, they are currently 16th and only that high courtesy of what looks an impressive Boxing Day win at Middlesbrough on Boxing Day for caretaker boss, Lee Bullen, after head coach Jos Luhukay was sacked on 21 December.I would not read too much into that, it was all Boro and says far more about the woeful home form of Tony Pulis' team, Boro have won just once at home in three months and were knocked out of the League Cup quarter finals by third tier Burton and are really struggling. Wednesday created little and are again likely to be without playmaker Fernando Forestieri, whom so much of what they do, goes through, we have discussed his importance so many times in the past. Edit: He will definitely miss out as an arrest warrant was issued for him yesterday, as the player failed to turn up in court. The Owls have won both starts under Bullen and he has got a reaction of sorts, but the home win was very hard fought too and came versus a Preston team who played well over an hour with ten men. Wednesday have the worst goal difference outside the bottom six and most stats indicate that they have a bottom 3 defence (maybe the absolute worst) and today face one of the strongest offensive units with Albion scoring a Championship high 52 goals ( the most at this stage since Bournemouth in their promotion campaign), Wednesday have not claimed any points from losing positions on the road in over 13 months and I favour WBA to score first and possibly run away with this.

 

 

 

 

 

Good Luck.