West Brom Fan View: How the Baggies have made The Hawthorns a fortress

Another home game and yet another home win, the Baggies are becoming a real force at The Hawthorns, with Sunderland the latest side to be defeated.

The Hawthorns is now a real fortress, with West Brom having won five of their last six home games, beating Sunderland, Hull City, Swansea, Watford and Burnley. In those five wins, we’ve scored 15 goals and conceded just three. That is a phenomenal record.

Especially considering that one of the biggest concerns about Tony Pulis management, is that we sometimes struggle to come out and attack teams, especially games that we need to win.

However, these concerns are now ancient history, the last five home fixtures that we’ve won, we were expected to win and we have. You have to give credit for Pulis for that, he’s really turned a corner in that respect. To put that into perspective, after just 22 games, we’ve already scored more goals at home than we did in the entirety of last season.

If you then consider the games where we might not have expected to win but did, at both Southampton and Leicester, our season has been magnificent so far.

Sitting at eighth in the Premier League table, above the likes of Stoke City, West Ham, Bournemouth and Southampton, with the squad we have, is nothing short of exceptional.

The players have performed really well, both new and old. Summer signing Matt Phillips has been arguably the best signing in the Premier League, with four goals and eight assists in 21 appearances, only Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne has got more assists in the league this season.

Furthermore, of the top five European leagues, only De Bruyne and Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos have got more assists than Phillips, quite a return for a measly 5.5m pounds.

Meanwhile, the long-serving Albion players are also playing a part, none more so than Chris Brunt. The Northern Irishman has scored three and assisted three in his last five home games, including a stunning strike to put the Baggies 2-0 up against Sunderland this weekend. He really does have a wand of a left-foot.

It’s Stoke City next up at home on February 2, where we may see the recently departed Saido Berahino in action for the away team, let’s hope for another win!

Boing Boing!