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Three things learned about West Brom in loss v Hull

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OPINION

West Brom’s winless run stretched to four games after they were beaten 1-0 by Hull City at the KCOM Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Frazier Campbell took advantage of some lapse Albion defending at a short corner to score what turned out to be the winning goal for the Tigers, who eased their relegation concerns with three points, while Darren Moore’s side slipped out of the top six for the first time since the middle of August.

West Brom’s chances of promotion took a huge hit with that result and here, This is Futbol has rounded up three things we learned from Saturday’s action on Humberside.

Moore could be sacked before Christmas

West Brom were too slow to sack Tony Pulis and Alan Pardew last season as they were relegated from the Premier League, so the club’s chiefs may have learned from that mistake and could pull the trigger on Moore soon if results do not improve. Even though it is only four games without a win, Albion’s issues under Moore go way deeper than just results. Their summer activity was woeful, they signed players and then changed to a system that doesn’t suit them and failed to offload players for big fees that they should have got rid of long ago. Moore was behind all that and now it looks like assistant manager Graeme Jones is more in control of the team than he is.

Defence has not been worked on inĀ training

Another thing that could add to Moore’s demise is how wretched Albion have defended this season. At the end of last term when Moore got fans dreaming of ‘Great Escape pt. 2’, West Brom defended like their lives depended on it. Craig Dawson and Ahmed Hegazi were brilliant at centre-back together as Moore ripped up Pardew’s playbook and got the side doing the basics correctly and making it hard for opposing players to break them down. What has happened to that now? It is clear every single week that the Baggies cannot defend and their centre-backs cannot play it out from the back. If you want see a defensive disasterclass, just tune in to watch West Brom every week.

Dawson has to go in January

West Brom could have probably got a lot of money for Dawson in the summer if they were willing to barter over the defender. The 28-year-old was in good form under Moore in the Premier League but since dropping down to the Championship, he looks like a completely different player. The former Rochdale man has been in woeful form. He looks spineless in the defence and his shoddy performances show him up as being a huge liability. At least with Kyle Bartley, Albion bought a defender who had been injured all of last season and Hegazi has shown every now and then that he is decent at this level. Dawson has just been a massive letdown and West Brom need to cut their losses on him in January.

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