West Brom fans can certainly be forgiven if they’ve come away from the weekend stressed and frustrated that they couldn’t beat Charlton Athletic at The Valley. However, whilst they didn’t win, they also managed not to lose and have taken a solid point away from London
Whilst that won’t be enough to raise the spirits of a lot of the Baggies, what certainly should improve their mood is looking over to what happened at Hillsborough, as Leeds United capitulated in a way that only the Whites can, losing 2-0 away at Sheffield Wednesday to fall to 2nd in the table.
The lead that Slaven Bilic’s side have over the Whites may only be one point, but prior to the pair kicking off at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, Leeds were top of the table over West Brom on goal difference, but the narrow margin of just 2 goals on GD has now gone too.
After points and goal difference, the next separating factor on the Championship table is goals scored, and Bilic’s free-scoring side have bagged seven times more than Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds this season going into the second half of the season.
There are still 19 games to play for both Leeds and West Brom, but looking back to last season and how the Whites got on is telling. In the first 23 games of the season, Leeds lost just three times and dropped a total of 21 points, yet in the second half of the season, they fell to a whopping ten defeats and dropped an even greater 34 points.
Do West Brom need to spend in January?
Yes, the squad needs that extra something
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We’re not sure if the same sort of disparity between Leeds’ start and end of the season will happen again, but if it does, it might well have started with their weekend loss, and that can only be a good thing for Bilic and co at The Hawthorns.