Baggies look to bounce back against Blues

West Bromwich Albion v Birmingham City; The Hawthorns, Saturday 10th October 2026, 12.30pm

Domestic football returns after an extended international break and, while Albion suffered a disappointing defeat in their last match, Morrison’s team remain well placed after a positive start to the campaign. Fifth place, just three points behind leaders Swansea City with fourteen points from eight games, is a position every Baggies fan would have gladly taken before the season started.

However, the manner of the defeat at Molineux, and the opposition, of course, did dampen the early season excitement. It had been a hectic few weeks and, perhaps, that showed in the tired and flat display that Mozza’s men put on. The players knew the importance of the fixture to the fans, but whether it was fatigue, nerves, the early kick off time or, perhaps more likely, the quality of the opposition, Albion failed to get going. They weren’t helped by a referee who failed to show a card to any Wolves player in the first half despite a number of cautionable challenges that essentially stopped the visitors from getting their passing game going. André was chief culprit with at least three yellow card offences that went unpunished.

The nature of the deciding goal made the defeat all the more difficult to take. Nat Phillips’ error was dreadful and highly unusual for him, but I guess these things happen. Hopefully, he won’t be vilified too much by the nastier element of the fanbase, and I’m sure he has the mental strength to put it behind him. In truth, Wolves were the better side and Albion had ridden their luck up to that point – without the error, it’s likely that they would have pushed much harder for a goal for the remainder of the match the Baggies’ luck would likely have run out at some point.

On Saturday, the boys have a great opportunity to bounce back against another local rival, albeit none of us really care that much about Birmingham City. Getting back to winning ways, however, is important after two games without a victory, but it will not be easy against a Blues side that have lost just once in the Championship this season.

It’s been a frustrating campaign for Chris Davies’ team so far – only one league defeat but, also, only two league victories. Their other five league games have ended in draws while, after an encouraging 1-0 win at Swansea in the first round of the Carabao Cup, they were thumped 6-1 at home to Brentford in the second round albeit Davies did field a slightly weaker side. Both of their league victories have come on the road, at Wrexham and Derby County, while their one defeat was also away from home at Norwich City. At St Andrew’s, all three of their Championship fixtures have finished 2-2 against Bristol City, Wolves and most recently against Middlesbrough.

City made five permanent signings in the summer in Jhon Solís from Girona, Dael Fry from Middlesbrough, Luis Vázquez from Anderlecht, Kristoffer Lund from Palermo and Max Bird from Bristol City. However, perhaps their most influential signings came in on loan from Premier League clubs – first choice goalkeeper, James Beadle, who was also on loan at St Andrew’s last season, has re-joined for another season from Brighton & Hove Albion while Canadian international, Liam Millar, has made a temporary move from Hull City. Midfielder Millar has one goal and three assists in his four appearances so far earning himself a man-of-the-match award in Blues’ 2-1 win at Derby last month. It puts him on top of the “goal involvements” chart for City this season, with their top scorer being “own goal”! They have benefitted from three of those with two players, Carlos Vicente and Phil Neumann, having scored twice. Star striker, Jay Stansfield, has just one to his name so far this season.

James Morrison will have been pleased that all his players on international duty have seemingly returned unscathed, albeit George Campbell may be rested for the weekend having played twice for the US over the break, most recently in the early hours of Wednesday morning in Minnesota. Tammer Bany also played on Wednesday for Jordan in Amman, albeit only for 25 minutes, while Barney Stewart capped off a successful couple of weeks with the Scotland U21 with a third goal in two games as they won 2-0 in Bulgaria. Jayson Molumby clocked up another four caps for Ireland, Isaac Price did the same for Northern Ireland, scoring in the 3-0 win over Ukraine, while Chris Mepham played in the first two of Wales’ Nations League games. Ousmane Diakité made one substitute appearance for Mali while Max O’Leary was an unused substitute for all of Ireland’s matches.

Interestingly, Brayann Pereira turned down a call up from the Republic of Congo to continue his work at Albion. With Nolan Galves ruled out for the season, the 23-year-old French-born defender is likely to become a valuable member of the squad and he will, no doubt, be keen to put his disastrous debut behind him. One of the big decisions that Morrison needs to make is when to give Pereira another chance – he will have had an opportunity to work closely with him over the international break and, if he can, I’m sure he would like to see Styles return to the left back berth.

Mozza will need all of his squad in the coming weeks as the Baggies face another hectic period of matches with seven games in four weeks ahead of the next international break in November. Callum Styles and Jimmy-Jay Morgan, who both withdrew from international squads with minor injuries, have both been declared fit ahead of the weekend and both are expected to start against Blues. Barney Stewart’s positive display off the bench at Molineux, plus his impressive international form, might put him in line for a first league start with Aune Heggebø struggling to make an impact this season.

It will be interesting to see if Morrison makes any allowance for the fact that Ousmane Diakité is on four (Championship) yellow cards with eleven games still to go until the amnesty – not picking him for the fixture before what might be considered a more important game is a potential option, but then aren’t all games important? The trip to West Ham is probably the toughest match coming up, but it is difficult and dangerous to try and engineer when his suspension might fall. It seems unlikely that he’ll make it until the Portsmouth match in early December without another yellow card, but Mozza will have to trust the player, and whoever comes in to replace him, to cope.

Having not been away on international duty, I would expect Nzingoula and Whitwell to start, probably alongside Diakité and Price, but I guess a lot depends on what levels of fatigue the returning internationals are experiencing. With the squad as thin as it is, the last thing the club needs is to lose a player to injury by pushing them too hard.

Blues will present a difficult task – they have evidently proved themselves difficult to beat this season – but if Albion can get back to the levels of performance they showed in the first few games of the season, the three points should be well within their reach.

History

Often referred to as a “friendly” rivalry due to the fans’ mutual dislike of Aston Villa, Albion against Blues has rarely raised the passions in a way that a game against Villa or, for Baggies fans, Wolves will always do. There have been a few occasions, such as in the early 90s, when both clubs went for a few seasons without playing their traditional rivals and the matches took on a greater significance, but it has largely been little more than just another game.

And then sometimes it is not even that – the 1-0 win for the hosts at St Andrew’s in April 2022 was probably the worst game of professional football that I have ever witnessed, one that both sides deserved to lose and was settled by a penalty from Lyle Taylor.

In recent seasons, the team from Small Heath has had the better of results with the Baggies having won just one of the last seven meetings with City having won four on the bounce between April 2022 and October 2023, albeit that followed a run of six Albion wins and three draws in nine matches. The Black Country team firmly hold the advantage in overall results with 61 wins to Blues’ 39 in 141 meetings.

Albion’s two biggest wins over Birmingham have come at St Andrew’s with the biggest home win come back in February 1926 – a brace for George James and a hat trick for Charlie Wilson helped the Throstles to a 5-1 win with Wallace Harris scoring a consolation for the visitors. The Baggies haven’t recorded a home win by more than two goals since 1946 when Davy Walsh and Jack Haines (2) were the goalscorers in a 3-0 victory, albeit at St Andrew’s, we only have to go back to 1992 for a 3-0 win when Gary Robson and Bob Taylor (2) were both on the scoresheet.

Blues’ biggest victory at the Hawthorns was 3-0 in March 2000 when Dele Adebola scored twice in the first eight minutes and Marcelo added a third late on after Larus Sigurðsson had been sent off. It left Albion in the bottom three and proved to be Brian Little’s last game in charge at the Hawthorns – Gary Megson was appointed a few days later. Trevor Francis’ team would end up in the play-offs but were beaten 4-0 at St Andrew’s by Barnsley in the first leg of the semi-final and failed to recover.

City have scored four at the Hawthorns once, and it was a huge match. In April 1994, both teams were struggling to survive in Division One having both been promoted from the third tier the previous summer. Keith Bukinshaw’s team were one point and one place ahead of Barry Fry’s Blues with the latter sitting in the relegation zone. Kevin Donovan opened the scoring mid way through the first half but a Steve Claridge goal made it 1-1 at half time. The visitors came out of the blocks quickly after the break scoring twice in the first dozen minutes through Louie Donowa and Andy Saville. Daryl Burgess pulled one back for the hosts but they couldn’t find the equaliser and Claridge’s second goal late on made the final score 4-2. City leapfrogged the Baggies in the table but, crucially we all thought, Albion had a game in hand. Albion beat Grimsby 1-0 at the Hawthorns in the next game while City drew at Bolton leaving the two clubs level on points but the Baggies ahead on goal difference. The game in hand was at Luton, and Albion lost 3-2, meaning it went down to the final day. Win, and Albion were safe, and what a day we had at Fratton Park! “Peggy” Ashcroft scored the only goal and Blues win at Tranmere Rovers counted for nothing, they went back to Division Two despite winning five and drawing two of their last seven games!

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

10 Feb 2026 – League Championship
Birmingham City 0
West Bromwich Albion 0

Last meeting at the Hawthorns

26 Nov 2025 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Mowatt)
Birmingham City 1 (Ducksch)

Last win

3 Feb 2024 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Weimann)
Birmingham City 0

Albion’s Record against Birmingham City