West Brom will look to bounce back from their draw with Blackburn Rovers as they travel to Vicarage Road to face fellow promotion hopefuls Watford on Monday. The Baggies suffered a late setback on Wednesday evening when Ben Brereton Diaz’s strike nestled into the bottom corner to cancel out Jayson Molumby’s opener.
Albion will reacquaint with former manager Slaven Bilic who is now in charge of the Hornets. The Croatian boss won automatic promotion with the Baggies back in the 2019/20 season and now finds himself tasked with the same feat in Hertfordshire.
Watford sit four places above Albion in sixth position but the Baggies could leapfrog them with a victory. West Brom have only won once in their last five matches, however, so they will be looking to resurrect their early form shown under manager Carlos Corberan.
Still, Albion remain just two points away from the play-off positions and will be hoping to shift back into the top six by beating Bilic’s Hornets. They produced a better showing against Blackburn in contrast to the Birmingham City defeat where they were abject in the Midlands derby game.
Corberan chose a strong line-up for that one and we expect him to go for something similar when they take on Watford. See below.
1. GK: Josh Griffiths
Handed his senior debut last time out, the former Lincoln City, Portsmouth and Cheltenham Town loanee is likely to retain his place ahead of David Button amid an injury to Alex Palmer.
2. RB: Darnell Furlong
Frequently chosen by Corberan at right-back, Furlong should remain first choice heading into the final 15 games of the season.
3. CB: Dara O’Shea
The Irishman has grown in confidence the more he has played and now donning the captain’s armband, he will hope to continue flourishing.
4. CB: Erik Pieters
A mainstay in a slightly unfamiliar central role in defence, Pieters has kept the likes of Semi Ajayi out of the team with his recent performances.