A little Claret for a Sunday lunchtime at the Hawthorns

West Bromwich Albion v Burnley; The Hawthorns, Sunday 23rd August 2026, 12pm

Baggies fans will get the opportunity to watch James Morrison’s team at the Hawthorns on Sunday afternoon for the first time since the battling goalless draw against Ipswich Town in April. The Clarets are the opposition fresh from an opening weekend draw against fellow relegated side, West Ham United.

The downside, I guess, of opening the competitive season with a League Cup tie on a Saturday, is that the traditional Hawthorns friendly the week before the league season did not happen, albeit the cost of hosting a friendly may have come into the equation. Albion did play a game against Coventry City behind closed doors at the Shrine, but the fans will have not been back to the stadium since that tense afternoon in April when Albion secured their place in the Championship for the second time in a week. They will, of course, have to wait an extra day with the game switched to a Sunday for coverage by Sky TV, the noon kick-off presumably to avoid a clash with the 2pm kick offs for the opening Premier League weekend.

Mozza’s team will, of course, be buoyed by the opening day victory at Carrow Road, albeit they were a little fortunate to come away with all three points. The team performance, in the second half at least, was excellent with two players, ‘keeper Max O’Leary and goalscorer Jimmy-Jay Morgan, featuring in the Championship Team of the Week. In the boss’s words, the team were “made to suffer” as he predicted against a side well fancied to be challenging for promotion this season, but they were up to the challenge. This was all the more impressive given that their match preparation was impacted by the departure of Alex Mowatt who had been central to Mozza’s plans for the game – the bulk of the match preparation was done by Wednesday before there was any indication that the man he had earmarked as his new club skipper was on his way. Felix Horn Myhre was drafted into the starting eleven alongside Diakité and probably didn’t have the impact he would have hoped for on his full debut.

It is that position that will probably give Morrison his biggest selection headache ahead of Sunday’s game. He could give Myhre another opportunity with a little more preparation time, or he could bring Jayson Molumby back to the starting line up – the Irishman’s abilities are well known with plenty of energy but perhaps without the same skill on the ball. There is another option, of course, in Rabby Nzingoula who made his debut off the bench in Norfolk – he looked lively and energetic, albeit the stats suggest that he wasn’t too careful with the ball misplacing 5 of his 12 attempted passes. I suspect Molumby will get the nod as I’m not sure that either of the two new signings are yet up to the physicality of the Championship, but I would also expect them both to feature at some point.

It could be that another option joins before Sunday with the club reportedly in negotiations to bring Toby Collyer back to the club. Nothing has been confirmed at the time of writing, and I suspect he would not be involved on Sunday even if he did come in. Mozza is evidently a fan of his but from my point of view, we saw so little of him during his time at the club that it is difficult to judge him fairly. His injury record is obviously a concern but if the deal is right, I’m not against him coming in.

Collyer would be another young player, and the club’s desire to bring the average age of the squad down was very much in evidence at Norwich – when Nzingoula came on, he became the third 20-year-old to be involved in the match, Morgan and Whitwell the other two, while the oldest player to feature was Max O’Leary at 29. The last time Albion played a league match without a player over 30 was, in fact, their last home game against Burnley in November 2024 – Kyle Bartley was injured and Jed Wallace was an unused substitute that evening. Of the current Albion squad, only two, Conor Townsend and Matt Ingram, are over 30, albeit both Max O’Leary and Nat Phillips will turn 30 before the end of the season.

Sunday’s opponents, Burnley, started the season with a late comeback against title favourites, West Ham United. The two claret-and-blue teams met at Turf Moor on Sunday afternoon and the hosts found themselves 2-0 with seven minutes left despite having had the better of the chances. Up stepped Dutchman Zian Flemming to score two late goals to rescue a point. As a relegated side, the Clarets are among the promotion favourites albeit the least fancied of the sides coming down. With a new head coach, Belgian Nicky Hayen, and two of last season’s best players already having left in Jaydon Anthony and Maxime Estève, albeit for big fees, it is no surprise that the pundits have dropped them down the pecking order. With the window still open, there are also concerns that last week’s saviour, Flemming, may also be on his way.

They did buy Florentino Luís from Benfica in June, but only as an obligation to buy that kicked in during his loan spell, and the defensive midfielder has made an immediate move to promoted Ipswich Town. Their three permanent signings this summer are winger Lluc Castell from Espanyol, midfielder Ugo Raghouber from Lille and veteran ‘keeper Ben Amos from Port Vale. Loan signings Max Alleyne from Manchester City and Dastan Satpayev from Chelsea complete their meagre summer incomings to date, albeit there is still more than a week of the window left and surely plenty of money for them to spend.

As a relegated Premier League club, Burnley will obviously present a tough test for the Baggies for their first home game. The second half performance at Norwich will give Mozza’s men confidence to take into their first home game of the season as they look to win the first two games of the league season for the second season in succession, something that last happened when the club was in the third tier!

History

In the 21st century, Albion and Burnley have both swapped between the top two divisions fairly regularly meaning that they have met 24 times since 2000, with two of those meetings coming in the FA Cup. The Baggies had the upper hand for much of that time but they haven’t recorded a victory over the Clarets for nine years with the last seven meetings resulting in two Burnley wins and five draws.

Albion’s last win against Burnley was in August 2017 when a goal from Hal Robson-Kanu was enough to earn all three points for Tony Pulis’s team. HRK had an eventful twenty minutes on the pitch that day – he came off the bench to replace James McClean in the 63rd minute, scored an excellent winner seven minutes later before being shown the red card in the 83rd minute for catching Matt Lowton with an elbow. The victory made it two wins from the first two games of the season for the first time for the Baggies in the Premier League, and the first in any league season since 1997. It didn’t prove auspicious as Pulis was sacked four months later and Albion were relegated at the end of the season after eight consecutive seasons in the top flight.

The Baggies’ last win over the Clarets at the Hawthorns was in November 2016 when Pulis’s team won 4-0 thanks to goals from Matt Phillips, James Morrison, Darren Fletcher and Salomón Rondón. Both sides had gone into the game having had less that 50% possession in every Premier League match that season and it was the visitors who ended up with more of the ball but none of the goals. Clarets’ boss Sean Dyche famously quoted that his side had “just got drunk on keeping the ball” and also lamented his personal record at the Hawthorns having broken his leg there aged 17 when playing with the Nottingham Forest reserve team. Undoubtedly, someone will remind Mozza that he was on the scoresheet the last time Albion recorded a home win over Burnley!

Albion still hold the edge in the head-to-head record having won 56 matches between the sides compared with Burnley’s 47 with 34 matches finishing all square. The win in 2016 was the second of two successive 4-0 home wins for the Baggies in this fixture, but that is some way short of the record win. In November 1967, Alan Ashman’s team put eight past Harry Potts’ visiting Clarets without any player notching a hat trick. Bobby Hope and Clive Clark both grabbed a brace with the other goals coming from Tony Brown, John Kaye, Eddie Colquhoun and Jeff Astle – with no substitutions, it meant that more Albion players scored than didn’t! The visitors finally got on the scoresheet in the 88th minute when Arthur Bellamy’s goal made the final score 8-1. That is just the biggest of a number of high scores Albion teams have registered against Burnley – there has also been a 7-1, a 6-1 as well as four games in which the Baggies have scored five.

The last time that Burnley were the first opponents of the league season at the Hawthorns was in 2003. Having been surprisingly beaten 4-1 by new promoted Walsall on the opening day, Gary Megson’s team welcomed Stan Ternent’s Clarets to the Shrine. New signing, Artim Šakiri, who had become known for scoring direct from a corner for Macedonia against England in a Euro 2004 qualifier, announced himself to Albion fans with a spectacular 30-yard effort to equalise Robbie Blake’s opener for the visitors. It would be his only goal for the club. Rob Hulse put the hosts in front with a header after the break before a late Lee Hughes double, his first league goals since returning to the club from Coventry City almost a year earlier, made the final score 4-1.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

11 Mar 2025 – League Championship
Burnley 1 (Flemming)
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Swift)

Last meeting at the Hawthorns

7 Nov 2024 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 0
Burnley 0

Last win

19 Aug 2017 – Premier League
Burnley 0
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Robson-Kanu)

Last win at the Hawthorns

21 Nov 2016 – Premier League
West Bromwich Albion 4 (Phillips, Morrison, Fletcher, Rondón)
Burnley 0

Albion’s Record against Burnley