Joe Thomlinson, who works as a presenter for Sky Sports and Football Daily, spent some time talking about West Bromwich Albion’s first half of the 2020/21 Premier League season during a recent video for the Football Daily YouTube channel.
After Saturday’s draw with Fulham, West Brom sit on 12 points at present. They’d earned just 11 points by the midway stage of the 2020/21 Premier League campaign, 19 games in, leaving Albion sitting in the relegation zone.
In reaction to the West Midlands club’s performance in the first half of the Premier League season, Thomlinson was dismissive of the Baggies’ chances of avoiding the drop this term, with the presenter declaring that he feels “this is going to be the one season” where Sam Allardyce, who took the reins at The Hawthorns back in mid-December following the sacking of Slaven Bilic, will fail to keep his team in the top flight.
Thomlinson said: “Deary me, surely this is going to be the one season Big Sam cannot rescue the club. He’s really struggling to stem the tide, they are conceding goals for fun at this stage. Unless [Mbaye] Diagne, who’s coming in on loan from Galatasaray, is an absolute worldie, then they’re gone.”
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TIF Thoughts on what Thomlinson said about Allardyce’s chances of keeping West Brom up…
Albion have got just 17 league games left to play and it may be fair to say that they are fighting an uphill battle, with six points separating them from 17th-placed Brighton and Hove Albion, who have played one game less than the Baggies at present.
Additionally, you could certainly argue that Allardyce doesn’t have a very strong squad at his disposal, with Albion rated as the least valuable squad in the Premier League by some distance, per Transfermarkt.
With all of that in mind, we feel it’s understandable why Thomlinson was so dismissive of West Brom’s chances of staying in the Premier League during this video, however, they are still in with a fighting chance and, as Thomlinson alluded to, their manager is known for his ability to keep teams up, so perhaps it’s still too early to write them off completely.