The boss names his starting XI to take on @BurnleyOfficial. 📋𝐔𝐓𝐀! 💚💛— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) January 20, 2023 Dike starting against Burnley looking for huge momentum...
Maybe just a down game but Dike was terrible today. To be fair, the entire team was totally outclassed by Burnley.
Terrible is a bit of a stretch. He held the ball up well enough but he was on an island most of the game. No service from the wide players whatsoever. Dike did seem to lack that final burst a couple times when he was given a through ball. He's still not 100% back yet imo. Also Burnley are a bunch of diving prima donna's
agree - his touch is not just wonderfully subtle. A couple of layoffs were good .... and he ran plenty and applied pressure. But he did have one excellent chance in the first half - and he just did not control it well enough to tee up a great shot - and the Burnley defender blocked it. WBA are what they are. They are in 6th ... but will they have enough quality to get into the EFL playoff?
and came off in the 52nd. sounds like he had zero service. in general WBA seemed utterly disinterested in going forward in the cup. now the can focus on making the playoffs.
No service for any of the forwards... not sure what Corberan was doing with this lineup unless it was to bomb out of the cup early and focus on the playoffs... if that was the case then he nailed it. Dike seemed barely interested at times as did the rest of the roster.
Big match today: West Brom (10th) hosting Coventry City (13th). West Brom's climb up the table slowed with a loss to leaders Burnley last time out, but now with the FA Cup safely out of the way, we'll see if that loss was just an interruption or an indication that their run has stalled. Outside of the top two teams, Burnley and Sheffield United, the table seems remarkably congested. Here are two views of places 3-16: Actual table, as of this moment: 3 45 Middlesbrough (Steffen) 4 45 Luton Town (Horvath) 5 44 Watford 6 43 Blackburn +++ The cutoff for promotion playoffs +++ 7 42 Norwich City (Sargent, Tomkinson) 8 42 Millwall 9 41 Sunderland (Gooch) 10 41 West Brom (Dike) 11 40 Preston (Olosunde) 12 39 Swansea 13 38 Coventry 14 38 QPR (Kelman) 15 37 Hull City (Covil) 16 37 Reading 16 is something of an arbitrary cutoff, but it's the first point at which you see actual separation (down to 33 points). Season-ending, as projected by 538, again as of this moment: 3 73 Middlesbrough 4 72 Millwall 5 72 Luton Town 6 72 West Brom +++ The Cutoff +++ 7 71 Norwich City 8 70 Watford 9 68 Swansea 10 66 Sunderland 11 64 Coventry 12 64 Blackburn 13 62 Preston 14 61 QPR 15 59 Reading 16 59 Stoke City Obviously, if that projection is anywhere close to what transpires, we'll have a lot of excitement until the very end of the season, with a lot of our guys chasing promotion. You don't get promoted by just dreaming about it, and West Brom still have a lot of work to do to catch up. Go Dike!
I thought Dike might start on the bench for this one. Not surprised that Alb got the start they desperately needed a wide player opposite of Jed Wallace.
WB 1-0 CC at HT. Dike with a couple of mentions: "Albrighton does brilliantly on the right to cut back and whip in a dangerous cross, it ends up in a dangerous area but Dike's header goes over." "Dike does brilliantly to win the ball in midfield before playing in Diangana, but his strike deflects wide of the post."
Finishes 1-0, a very helpful 3 points, West Brom now tied with Watford for 5th, though several teams have a game in hand.
They weren't the first team to be outclassed by Burnley and they won't be the last. Burnley are 17 points clear of 3rd place, with a game in hand and just 17 games to go. They'll be promoted by Easter
https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...o-europe-ahead-of-march-nations-league-window Eyes will be on Dike and Trusty today. Great chance to impress in a big match.
A day late and a dollar short ... Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler I mean you of course, not Hudson. It's not like you, Brian, to get scooped on a story this big! Kudos to MVann for breaking the news earlier this afternoon. [/spolier]
So weird to read that combination of words together - but kudos to them for getting a lot out of Josh Brownhill and Jay Rodriguez!
One of the worst performances I've seen from a professional squad aside Dike probably needs to sit for a while he's not asserted himself enough into the last few matches.