This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Everything appears to be running smoothly at West Bromwich Albion this season.
They sit top of the Championship table, having lost just one game all season as Slaven Bilic looks to be the man to guide them back to the promised land of the Premier League.
At their current rate, it is more than plausible as they would reach 92 points, which has been enough for automatic promotion in four of the last five seasons.
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The Baggies have also done so relatively unscathed as a core group of five players have started every single match this campaign while an entire starting XI worth have featured in ten or more games, per WhoScored.
That could be about to change in the near future as both Romaine Sawyers and Jake Livermore are just one booking away from earning a suspension.
On the Chalkboard
Their accumulation of yellow cards will be wiped when they face Swansea City at the start of December, but there are four games between then, so it is quite likely that at least one will pick up that fifth booking of the season.
Both midfielders have been an integral part of Bilic’s system this campaign as they are two of the five to start every single match.
The duo are effectively Albion’s engine room at the heart of the pitch – Sawyers averages the most passes per game of any midfielder in the division while Livermore isn’t too far behind with an 84% passing success rate.
Looking at Bilic’s bench in their last fixture, there was only one central midfield option in Filip Krovinovic, and even then, he’s more of a number ten than a number eight.
This means that the Baggies’ new arrival Gareth Barry may be called upon sooner than expected as he re-signed for the club this week on a deal until the end of the season.
His boss expects him to feature in a few U23 games in the next few weeks to get him up to match fitness, but should a suspension creep in before then, he could well be fast-tracked into the starting line up.
Last season, Barry started 22 matches in the second flight, averaging 1.4 tackles, 1.3 clearances, and 37.1 passes per game, via WhoScored, so he would be a reliable option on the defensive side of things if he can get up to speed quickly.