IN FOCUS: WEST BROMWICH ALBION (2022)

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

With the new Sky Bet Championship season now approaching, we bring you the lowdown on all 23 of our league opponents

2022-07-25T08:00:00.000Z

IN FOCUS: WEST BROMWICH ALBION (2022)

With the new Sky Bet Championship season now approaching, we bring you the lowdown on all 23 of our league opponents

2022-07-25T08:00:00.000Z

With the new Sky Bet Championship season now approaching, we bring you the lowdown on all 23 of our league opponents

One of the Football League’s 12 founding members alongside the Clarets, West Bromwich Albion were initially founded in 1878 as ‘West Bromwich Strollers’, taking their current name two years later.

Recognised mainly just as West Brom, Albion have spent the vast majority of their time in the top two divisions of English Football, only once a third-tier club.

They are historically successful in cup competitions, five-time winners of the FA Cup and once winners of the League Cup.

Promoted to the Championship in 1993, they were then a Premier League team for the first time nine years later.

Since, many promotions and relegations have ensued, though a ‘great escape’ in 2004/05 is amongst the most memorable for Baggies fans. They became the first Premier League team to survive despite being bottom on Christmas Day.

Most recently relegated in the 2020/21 season, West Brom endured a difficult first season back in the second-tier last term and did not challenge for promotion.

Stadium: The Hawthorns (26,688) – Halfords Lane, West Bromwich, B71 4LF

Nickname(s): The Baggies, The Albion

Manager: Steve Bruce

2021/22 Finishing Position: 10th

2021/22 Top Scorer: Karlan Grant (18)

Notable Connections: Though he’s a boyhood Burnley supporter, Jay Rodriguez was a ‘Baggie’ between 2017 and 2019. The 32-year-old scored 33 times for West Brom, helping them to the Championship Play-Off semi-final, before re-joining the Clarets.

He is currently sat on 62 goals for Burnley having signed a contract extension in the summer of 2022.

Rodriguez’s former teammate and Clarets legend Brian ‘the Beast’ Jensen also spent three years with West Brom prior to making the move to Turf Moor in 2003.

Playing 50 times for the Baggies, the Danish goalkeeper would go on to feature 310 times for Burnley.

Winning the Championship Play-Off final in 2009, he departed in 2013 and ended his career in England with spells at Bury, Crawley Town & Mansfield Town before a season with Crusaders in the Republic of Ireland. Jensen is now a goalkeeping coach at League One side Shrewsbury Town.

Others to have featured for both Burnley and West Brom include Delroy Facey, Stanislav Varga, and Charlie Austin.

Last Time We Met: The Clarets last faced West Brom in the 2020/21 Premier League season, when both meetings ended goalless.

Burnley picked up their first point of the season at the Hawthorns in a Monday Night meeting, while Baggies defender Semi Ajayi was shown a straight red card in the reverse fixture. That 0-0 draw, the most recent contest, came in February 2021.

Full Record (All Competitions): P: 133 - W: 46, D: 31, L: 56

Fixtures in the 2022/23 season: 21.01.23 (H – Turf Moor) / 03.09.22 (A – The Hawthorns)