Cardiff up next as Baggies enter final third of the season

West Bromwich Albion v Cardiff City; The Hawthorns, Tuesday 13th February 2024, 7.45pm

Following the hard-fought draw at Ipswich on Saturday, Albion are now just short of two thirds of the way through the season – 30 games played and 16 to go, with the remainder neatly split into two batches of eight matches in five weeks either side of the international break in March.

That first batch kicks off with four games in two weeks, the first two at home and the second two away, with the easiest of those, on paper at least, being the visit of Cardiff City to the Hawthorns on Tuesday evening. The Bluebirds are down in 14th place but are just nine points behind the Baggies in what is a very congested pack of teams chasing a top six spot. They have had a fairly mixed season and, unlike Albion, have almost identical records both at home and away with the only difference being that they have conceded one more goal on the road than at home.

Most recently, it is their away form that is keeping them from drifting down the table having not won in the Welsh capital since early December but with three wins in their last four on the road. City boss, Erol Bulut, seems at a loss to explain why performances are apparently so inconsistent, but he retains the support of the fans for the time being with his team much higher than the 18th and 21st placed finishes they have endured in the past two campaigns.

Karlan Grant, who has scored four goals for the Bluebirds this season, will be ineligible for this match as he is still on loan from Albion, while Callum Robinson, who was well used in the first half of the season, hasn’t been involved in a matchday squad since New Year’s Day due to injury. Meanwhile, Romaine Sawyers has barely featured at all this season making just two substitute appearances in the Championship.

Monday saw the news we all feared that Daryl Dike has suffered yet another serious injury, rupturing the Achilles tendon in his left leg having just recovered from a similar injury to his right leg – he is unlikely to play again this calendar year. Since joining Albion on 1st January 2022, he has started just 17 games in all competitions scoring seven goals in those matches, plus one further goal he scored as a substitute at Sunderland. Who knows how important he could have been had he remained fit.

Thankfully, the club was able to provide Corberán with further attacking options in January and, while the bulk of the number nine workload is still likely to fall on the shoulders of Brandon Thomas-Asante, Andi Weimann and Callum Marshall will almost certainly get opportunities in the coming weeks. Weimann showed his finishing instincts with the winner against Blues last week, while Marshall has proved in his U21 career that he knows where the goal is – it will be interesting to see how Corberán rotates the starting line-up with four games in the next two weeks.

Dike wasn’t the only injury suffered in Suffolk with Kyle Bartley having been forced off at half time. He will obviously be a doubt for the visit of Cardiff City and the Baggies boss must make a decision on who to play. On Saturday, he opted to drop Okay Yokuşlu into the back four and bring Chalobah into midfield, but then admitted that it had a negative impact on Albion’s control of the game. Semi Ajayi was on the losing side on Sunday’s AFCON final and it would seem unlikely that he will be ready to start on Tuesday so, with Caleb Taylor out on loan at Bolton Wanderers, Erik Pieters is the only real alternative.

Whichever choices Corberán makes, the team should be good enough to claim all three points against Cardiff City at the Hawthorns, and with one of their toughest opponents to come in their next home game, Albion can ill afford a slip up.

History

Albion and Cardiff City meet for the 56th time in the league on Tuesday evening and, should the Baggies hit four goals, they would rack up a total of 100 league goals against the Bluebirds! The hosts are comfortably ahead on the head-to-head record with 23 league wins to City’s 16 while at the Hawthorns, Albion have won 14 of the previous 27 league encounters with the Welsh team having recorded six victories in B71.

Cardiff’s last win at the Hawthorns was in December 2009 when Dave Jones’ team won 2-0 thanks to goals from Chris Burke and Peter Whittingham. That season, Roberto di Matteo’s team only lost four league games at the Hawthorns, and two of them were against the sides from south Wales!

The Baggies have never lost by more than two goals at home to Cardiff, but they have conceded four times on two occasions. Back in November 1923, when the Bluebirds were a real force in “English” football, they followed up a 3-0 win at Ninian Park with a 4-2 win at the Hawthorns a week later – only two players found the net that day with Bobby Blood scoring both of the hosts’ goals while Len Davies scored all four of Cardiff’s. The Welsh club would go on to miss out on the league title on goal average to Huddersfield Town.

City’s other 4-2 win at the Hawthorns was in the League Cup in September 2007 – Ishmael Miller scored twice for Albion but the Bluebirds won comfortably having taken a 4-0 lead inside half an hour thanks to a brace from Robbie Fowler and further goals from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Trevor Sinclair.

Albion’s biggest home win over Cardiff was back in November 1953 when Vic Buckingham’s “Team of the Century” romped to a 6-1 with Ronnie Allen scoring four goals and Johnny Nicholls backing the other two – Ken Chisholm had given the visitors an early lead.

A win would give Albion their first league double of the season, and their first league double over Cardiff City since the 1974/75 season when the Baggies won both fixtures 2-0. The second of those was at the Hawthorns in April 1975 under the stewardship of Brian Whitehouse who took caretaker charge after the dismissal of Don Howe. Having made his debut at York City a week before, a certain Bryan Robson made his first Hawthorns appearance against the Bluebirds scoring his first senior goal in front of just over 10,000 spectators.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

28 Nov 2023 – League Championship
Cardiff City 0
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Sarmiento)

Last meeting at the Hawthorns

17 Aug 2022 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 0
Cardiff City 0

Last win at the Hawthorns

5 Oct 2019 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 4 (Pereira, Diangana, Austin, Sawyers)
Cardiff City 2 (Ward (2))

Albion’s Record against Cardiff City