West Brom vs. Leicester City
Venue: Hawthorns
Kick off: 2PM
West Bromwich Albion return to Premier League action for the first time since 2018 this afternoon when they welcome Leicester City to the Hawthorns on the opening weekend of the 2020-21 season.
The newly-promoted Baggies are among the favourites to be relegated straight back to the Championship this season and face a difficult first test against a team that occupied a Champions League place for much of last term.
One of the advantages of the quick turnaround between seasons for West Brom will be that the feel-good factor from promotion last term will still be very much prevalent.
On the flip side, for Leicester the disappointment of missing out of a Champions League spot will also be fresh in their minds and Brendan Rodgers will hope that their form post-lockdown does not extend into the new season too.
After week six of last season the Foxes did not drop out of the top four until the penultimate week of the campaign, but crucially they finished fifth having been unable to sustain a brilliant early-season run of form which saw them win 12 of their opening 16 matches.
Leicester only won six more times throughout the campaign after that, and the final nail in their coffin was the 2-0 home defeat against fellow Champions League hopefuls Manchester United on the last day.
Leicester have not won any of their last four opening-weekend Premier League games – including a 0-0 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2019-20 – and Rodgers will know that replicating their form from the first half of last season will be a huge ask.
Today’s hosts may consider their trip to the Hawthorns to be a relatively kind way to begin the new campaign, though, particularly as the Baggies also ended last season in underwhelming form.
Had it not been for an untimely wobble from Brentford too, Slaven Bilic’s side may not have even been in the Premier League this season, as just three points from their final four Championship games opened a door to automatic promotion which the Bees were ultimately unable to step through.
The fact that West Brom only lost seven games in a division as unpredictable and challenging as the Championship proves that they are a difficult team to beat under Bilic, though, and that is a trait which will come in handy this season.
It was certainly not something they had on their last taste of top-flight football, when they lost half of their matches en route to finishing bottom in 2017-18.
Nor is it something they have been able to boast in past home games against Leicester, having lost each of their last four such matches; Leicester have never won five successive away Premier League games against a specific opponent.
As far as pre-season is concerned, West Brom’s solitary outing saw them play out a stalemate with Brighton & Hove Albion, whereas Leicester have beaten Birmingham City but drawn with Sheffield Wednesday and Blackburn Rovers.
West Bromwich Albion possible XI: Johnstone, O’Shea, Ajayi, Bartley, Gibbs, Livermore, Sawyers, Phillips, Pereira, Diangana, Austin.
Leicester City possible XI: Schmeichel, Justin, Ndidi, Soyuncu, Castagne, Gray, Tielemans, Mendy, Praet, Barnes, Vardy.
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