Baggies look to re-ignite their season against Preston

West Bromwich Albion v Preston North End; The Hawthorns, Saturday 18th October 2025, 3pm

Albion return to action on Saturday with a home game against one of the early pace-setters followed by two away trips kicking off a run of six games in three weeks before the league programme pauses once again for the final international break of the year.

In the equivalent period last season, Carlos Corberán’s team drew five and won one of those six games, part of a run of just one win in thirteen games that spoiled the early season promise. There are similarities in the current campaign with a good start damaged by the failure to capitalise on dominant periods before an abhorrent performance at Millwall left Baggies fans low ahead of the two week break.

A home game against a side that Albion have a good recent record against represents a great opportunity for Ryan Mason’s team to kick start their season once again, albeit the Lilywhites have enjoyed a positive start to their own campaign under Paul Heckingbottom and they sit two points and three places above the Baggies. However, Preston’s league position is based largely on an unbeaten home record and they have picked up just one win on the road, a 1-0 win at Derby County last month.

Emil Riis Jakobsen, who scored three goals against the Baggies in his time at Deepdale, may have left for pastures new, but one name that will jump out at Albion fans is Lewis Dobbin. He had an unspectacular loan spell at the Hawthorns last season, before enjoying more success at Norwich City. He is now on loan at Preston and already has two goals and two assists to his name in six appearances. Montenegrin forward, Milutin Osmajić, seems to have taken on Riis Jakobsen’s role as chief goalscorer and has three goals for North End this season, and also netted in Montenegro’s 2-1 comeback win over Liechtenstein on Monday.

Another player with Albion links joined Preston this summer in the shape of left back, Thierry Small. Born in Solihull and named after the Arsenal legend, he was at the Baggies academy until the age of 12 before moving to Everton and then Southampton. He was a member of Charlton’s promotion-winning team last season and moved to Deepdale in the summer. He has started the season well at wing back and scored against the Addicks last time out, his second goal for the Lilywhites; he also made his England U21 debut last week in Moldova.

For Ryan Mason and his coaching team, they will have analysed what didn’t work at Millwall but, given what had gone before, I don’t think a wholesale change of approach is required. Consideration will be given to it being a three-game week with the break between Wednesday evening and Saturday lunchtime shorter than normal, so I expect to see different line-ups for each game.

Friday’s injury news was positive in that all the injured players, including Dike, Grant and Bany, are now back in training but, perhaps, not yet ready to be thrown in. Bany played his first 45 minutes for the PL2 side in midweek while Dike and Grant haven’t played any football for some time. All of the players away on international duty seem to have returned unscathed.

Toby Collyer was, perhaps, unfortunate that his first start coincided with Albion’s worst display of the season but I feel sure he will be used at some point this week, even if it is not from the start against Preston. George Campbell has been coming in for some criticism for his performances at right back, and I do wonder whether this week will see the first use of Alfie Gilchrist since his move from Chelsea. I’m sure the youngster will have been disappointed to not have seen any action yet – part of his reason for moving would be to get first team football and he has been kept out of the side by a man playing out of position.

At Millwall, the formation was more of a 4-4-2 with Price pushed out to the left, where he plays to great effect with Northern Ireland, and Jed Wallace up alongside Heggebø – it’s hard to say that worked and I suspect we will see a return to the more familiar 4-2-3-1 set up on Saturday, and there will certainly be a clamour for Maja and Iling-Junior to get starts as the club’s two most recent scorers.

Hopefully, the last performance was only a blip. Previous displays have been encouraging even if the results haven’t been as positive as they could have been. This will not be an easy game but it is one that the Baggies really need to win to get their season moving in the right direction once again.

History

Preston North End have been a fairly regular opponent over the years, albeit the teams haven’t met in the top flight since January 1961, but then that was the last time that “Proud Preston” played at the highest level.

In recent years, the Baggies have had the edge with only two defeats in the last fourteen meetings, and only one defeat at the Hawthorns since the early 1970s. One particularly entertaining victory came during Tony Mowbray’s first spell in charge of Albion on Boxing Day 2006.

North End were on one of their rare challenges for that long-awaited return to the top flight and came to the Black Country sitting in second place in the Championship table, five points behind leaders, Birmingham City, lead by a young up-and-coming coach by the name of Paul Simpson. Albion were still coming to terms with the change of style that Mowbray had brought in, but a 5-0 win over Coventry City in their previous home game had the fans believing once again, and the Baggies sat just outside the play-offs.

The game started brightly for the hosts when Jason Koumas beautifully controlled Darren Carter’s ball over the top before stepping inside two defenders and curling a wonderful shot into the bottom corner of the net for the opening goal, his fourth in five games. Albion’s second came on the break from a Preston corner – Robinson cleared the ball to Carter who in turn fed a fast breaking (and hirsute) Curtis Davies operating as a makeshift left winger in this move; he squared the ball with the Lilywhites’ defence struggling to organise themselves and Diomansay Kamara swept the ball home to make it 2-0 after 25 minutes.

The visitors were back in the game before half time in controversial circumstances when a awkwardly bouncing ball struck Paul Robinson on the arm and referee Scott Mathieson pointed to the spot. Graham Alexander was, as usual, unerring with his penalty kick finding the inside of Hoult’s right hand post.

A key turning point in the game occurred a few minutes later when former Albion striker, Danny Dichio, clashed with the combative Paul McShane and appeared to throw an elbow towards the Irish international’s head. Mathieson saw it and showed Dichio a red card.

Despite being down to ten men, Preston were back on level terms midway through the second half when David Nugent finished off Sedgwick’s cross from close range.

Cue Albion’s forgotten striker, Nathan Ellington, who came on to replace Darren Carter a few minutes later and, just four minutes after coming on, had put the Baggies back in front. Albion had a free kick some 30 yards from goal but the Duke took a snapshot and it squirmed under the body of Carlo Nash in the Preston goal. Ellington wasn’t done, however, and he headed home Robinson’s cross with a few minutes left to make the final score 4-2.

Albion, of course, went on to be beaten in the play-off final at Wembley while a late season collapse by North End, when they lost six of their last eight matches, saw them finish seventh.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

1 Jan 2025 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 3 (Maja (2), Styles)
Preston North End 1 (Ledson)

Albion’s Record against Preston North End