West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland > Saturday August 16th

[Aidymac]

[TABLE=class: couponTable, width: 617] [TR=class: row0] [TD=class: firstColumn]West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland (15:00 BST)[/TD] [TD=class: selectionBestOdd, align: center]2.35[/TD] [TD=class: selectionBestOdd, align: center]3.5[/TD] [TD=class: selectionBestOdd, align: center]3.5[/TD] [TD=class: bppWidth bpp, align: center]99.70 %[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

[Mindfulness]

Re: West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland > Saturday August 16th West Bromwich Albion V Sunderland Sunderland +0.25 @ 2.010 (Pinnacle) > 5% BR Pre-season hasn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs for WBA, new manager Alan Irvine hasn’t had much time to integrate the clubs new signings while injuries and technical issues continue to overshadow preparations for the new campaign. The turnover of defenders has been particularly high during the summer with the Baggies backline virtually starting from scratch. Marquee signing Joleon Lescott looks set to miss the start of the campaign through injury while fellow centre-back Gareth McAuley will probably take part against Sunderland but cannot be considered fully match fit. A host of new defensive signings have had little time to gel and so the backline situation for WBA is not ideal heading into Saturdays match. Midfielder James Morrison is out after missing the whole of pre-season while Morgan Amalfitano and Scott Sinclair have left the building along with striker Matej Vydra. Second striker Stephane Sessegnon and new centre-forward Brown Ideye are both struggling for match fitness after a disrupted pre-season. In short, West Brom are really struggling for fitness and cohesion heading into this game. Much more continuity for Sunderland, their pre-season has run a lot more smoothly. No change of manager for them with Gustavo Poyet gradually developing his team, I rate him as a coach and was pleased for him when Sunderland survived at the end of last season. There hasn’t been a huge amount of transfer activity so far for the Black Cats but van Aanholt, Gomez and Rodwell should all be decent additions. Unfortunately ex-West Brom right-back Billy Jones is not fit to face his former club so it’s likely Santiago Vergini will fill in at RB for this game. Giaccherini is also unlikely to play while Borini has yet to rematerialize from Merseyside. I just feel Sunderland have got a bit more going forward heading into this contest. There’s been a lot of transfer speculation regarding Connor Wickham but he’s had a good pre-season and at the time of writing this we have to assume he will be starting for Sunderland on Saturday afternoon. Even if the worst comes to the worst Steven Fletcher is a more than capable replacement at centre-forward. Wing forward Will Buckley is potentially signing for Sunderland sometime in the next 24 hours so you never know Sunderland might have an additional attacking player in their squad for the West Brom game which would be a bonus. I don’t want to look at last season too much but it should be noted that Sunderland had a fairly respectable away record in 2013/2014 and I don’t think the market has really factored this in. A lot to process but when you consider the various circumstances I think Sunderland on the +0.25 line at odds against seems to be the natural selection in this situation.

[Aidymac]

Re: West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland > Saturday August 16th Good call there mate. :ok