Baggies look for third league double of the campaign

Brummie Road Ender

·13 March 2025

Baggies look for third league double of the campaign

West Bromwich Albion v Hull City; The Hawthorns, Saturday 15th March 2025, 3pm

Albion will look to extend their five-match unbeaten record when they welcome Hull City to the Hawthorns on Saturday. After another excellent performance at Burnley with something of a makeshift side, Tony Mowbray’s team will want to ensure that point is worthwhile by banking all three against the 18th-placed Tigers.

A victory would also confirm the Baggies’ third league double of the season after a 2-1 victory on Humberside in November in what was Albion’s most recent victory on the road. Since then, both clubs have changed head coach with City appointing Spaniard, Rubén Sellés, to replace Tim Walter in early December. The former Southampton boss was poached from League One Reading to take up the post at the MKM Stadium and has certainly steadied the ship, recording seven wins from his nineteen games in charge to lift the Tigers away from the danger zone. While impressive victories on the road at Bramall Lane and the Stadium of Light have been highlights, there have also been some disappointing results including defeats at Cardiff City and at home to Stoke City and QPR that mean they are still looking over their shoulder at the bottom three just five points behind.

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March has been a good month for City in terms of results with two home victories and a creditable point away to Bristol City, but they have received a red card in each of their last two games meaning that they will be without both João Pedro and Gustavo Puerta for this match through suspension. It will not be an easy game for Albion, however, as City have certainly improved their defence under Sellés, but it is one that they should be capable of winning.

With Furlong suspended and Bartley nursing a knee injury, there was a new look to the Albion defence at Burnley with Mowbray opting for a back three for the first time since his return. Diakité was excellent as a makeshift centre-back while I thought Callum Styles was superb as a wing back. No talk of the game can go without mentioning John Swift’s superb free kick nor Joe Wildsmith’s dreadful error that gifted Burnley the equaliser a few minutes later. Swift is certainly enjoying his best form of the season under Mowbray but is still not a guaranteed starter. Wildsmith, on the other hand, is assured of his place for the time being with Mowbray defending him once again after this mistake, and I think that keeping him in place is the right call for the time being. He’s made one or two errors but he’s not got anywhere near the level that David Button did under Bruce and I still feel he deserves to keep the gloves, for now at least.

Contrary to my assertion that Jayson Molumby picked up his tenth yellow card against QPR, it was, in fact, his ninth and so he has escaped a two-match suspension with the match against Burnley being the cut-off. I blame Transfermarkt.com which reports that he has ten, whereas further investigation reveals that he was not booked against Leeds early in the season as shown there – that card went to Semi Ajayi. In any case, Mowbray opted to leave him out on Tuesday anyway to protect him from that possibility of a suspension and the Irishman will almost certainly be back in the middle of the park on Saturday. Having said that, if Bartley is not fit enough to start, Mowbray may opt for the back three again which could leave Molumby benched once more as I’m sure he will want to keep the more creative players on the pitch.

Karlan Grant is another player who deserves praise from Tuesday’s match and, along with Diakité, it demonstrates how Mowbray has been able to keep the squad motivated and ready to perform even when they are not getting a regular starting spot. Too often players can become disillusioned when not starting, and Grant himself seemed to be heading that way in the early days of Mogga’s tenure, but he has been brought along with the squad’s journey and it does seem as though the squad as a whole is starting to come together to peak at just the right time.

It’s almost impossible to predict what Mowbray will do from week to week so I will say what I would do. Assuming Bartley is fit, I would start the same side as started against QPR, apart from bringing in Holgate for the suspended Furlong. I am tempted to give Lankshear a go from the start and, if I did, I would probably play Diangana behind rather than Price, although it is difficult to leave the Northern Irish international out.

Well, it’s not my problem to solve, thankfully, and I’m fairly confident that Mowbray will put out a side that will be good enough to win the game.

History

Hull City are looking for their first win at the Hawthorns in more than 16 years and may take some solace from the fact that Tony Mowbray was the Baggies boss when they last tasted success in B71. After Albion won the Championship title in 2008, the Tigers beat Bristol City at Wembley in the play-off final to win promotion to the Premier League under Phil Brown. In their first ever top flight season, they started superbly and were third in the table when they visited the Hawthorns in October 2008 and won 3-0 with goals from Marlon King, Kamil Zayatte and Geovanni. They would win just one of their next thirteen games and ultimately only just escaped the drop finishing 17th despite picking up just three points from their last ten games.

Since then, Albion have lost just three times in nineteen meetings with Hull City, all of which have come at the KCOM Stadium or whatever sponsors name it had at the time. At the Hawthorns, the Baggies have won eight successive encounters with the Tigers dating back to a League Cup Third Round tie in September 2014 when Steve Bruce’s team led 2-1 with three minutes left only for late goals from Gareth McAuley and Saido Berahino to turn the game around and send Alan Irvine’s Albion into the fourth round.

During Project Restart in July 2020, Slaven Bilić’s Baggies took the lead twice against the Tigers in the first half through Charlie Austin and Ahmed Hegazi only for City to equalise twice. Former Hull favourite, Kamil Grosicki put Albion back in front with what was his only goal for the Baggies before Grady Diangana made the points secure with a fourth.

In August 2022, Steve Bruce was in charge at the Hawthorns when Hull City came to visit. The Baggies were looking for their first league win of the season and the team responded and went 4-0 up by the 70th minute thanks to an own goal from Callum Elder, goals from John Swift and Darnell Furlong and a penalty from Karlan Grant. Óscar Estupiñán scored twice for the visitors either side of a Dara O’Shea strike to make the final score 5-2, but it didn’t spark Albion’s season into life and another nine games would pass before they won again, by which time Bruce had been sacked.

That was not the Baggies’ biggest win over Hull, however, that came in April 1930. Four goals from Jimmy Cookson , two from Tommy Glidden and another from Harry Boston saw Albion win 7-1 in a Division Two fixture at the Hawthorns.