Friday 26 July 2019

Albion take on AFCB with Slaven Bilic in the dugout

WBA will be AFCB's opposition on Saturday and they have a second season ahead of them in the Championship after finishing fourth, but losing to Aston Villa on penalties in the play-offs. They are likely to be among the favourites to win promotion this time, but there has been a bit of a clear out at the Baggies over the summer.
AFCB head to the Hawthorns.
Players that have left the club include Gareth Barry, Craig Dawson, Wes Hoolahan, James Morrison, Jay Rodriguez and Boaz Myhill. The big transfer move out of the club was arguably Solon Rondón, who didn't even play for WBA last season but was on loan at Newcastle Utd. However, WBA also lost 16-year-old Louie Barry to Barcelona who they were desperate to try and keep hold of having been at the club since he was six. Dwight Gayle scored 24 goals for the Baggies last season, after the transfer swap with Rondón going to Newcastle, but Gayle is not going to be playing at WBA next season.

WBA have bought in a couple of players and they include Filip Krovinovic, a midfielder from Benfica and striker Kenneth Zohore from Cardiff City. The big hope for the Baggies is that Slaven Bilic can take them back up to the Premier League after he was appointed their new manager in June 2019, taking over from Darren Moore who was sacked in March 2019.

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Bilic has a tough job ahead of him to reduce the wage bill and still keep WBA competitive in the Championship. He'll have to do it with several new players and yet he is likely to have some Premier League players who do stay at the club like Chris Brunt, Jake Livermore, Matt Philips and Jonathan Leko. Whether Bilic is going to bring back Oliver Burke is not clear. The midfielder played on loan at Celtic last season, but WBA's director Luke Dowling said he doesn't want Burke playing under Neil Lennon.

In other news, Dominic Solanke has grabbed the vacant number nine shirt.

1 comment:

  1. Better check your match day details or you may miss the game!
    Boing, Boing! - Lymington Baggie.

    ReplyDelete

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