Southampton vs West Brom tips and predictions: Boing Boing Baggies bouncing to Wembley
Southampton play host to West Brom at St Marys' in the Championship play-off semi-finals on Friday (2000 BST) and we’re predicting an upset.
They currently compete in the Championship, in the the second tier of the English football ladder, having been relegated there at the end of the 2020/21 Premier League season.
Albion reached the final once again in 1887, but on this occasion, they were beaten 2-0 by their Midlands rivals, Aston Villa.
Albion were relegated once again in 1938, but after they were promoted to the top flight once more in 1948/49, they had their longest uninterrupted spell there - 24 years in the division.
Albion featured once again in the Premier League in 2020/21 after Slaven Bilic earned them promotion from the Championship during the previous season.
Barnsley manager Valerien Ismael ultimately took over as West Brom's new head coach but failed to make an impact in their return to the Championship and was sacked and replaced by Steve Bruce in February 2022.
The former Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan joined the club on two-and-a-half-year deal on October 25, with the club second bottom of the Championship. He guided them to a ninth-place finish in the 2022/23 season, just three points off the play-off places.
Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father completed their takeover of West Brom in February 2024.
The deal to acquire Guochuan Lai’s 87.8 per cent majority shareholding, worth a reported £60million, had already been approved by the EFL.
The Sky Bet Championship club confirmed the formalities of the takeover by Bilkul Football WBA, LLC – a company owned by Patel and his father Kiran Patel – were completed on February 28.
“I am delighted and humbled to become the new custodian of West Bromwich Albion Football Club,” new Baggies chairman Patel told the club’s website.
“Today marks the beginning of an exciting project for the club to regain its standing as a consistent Premier League presence.
“Success does not occur overnight, but it is my ambition to build on the club’s current and historical strengths and surround West Bromwich Albion with high quality stakeholders at home and globally.”
Southampton play host to West Brom at St Marys' in the Championship play-off semi-finals on Friday (2000 BST) and we’re predicting an upset.
West Brom and Southampton played out a 0-0 draw in the first leg of their Championship play-off semi-final at the Hawthorns.
West Bromwich Albion play host to Southampton in the first leg of their Championship play-off on Sunday afternoon (1415 BST)
As the curtain comes down on another long and arduous Championship campaign, one of our tipsters has shared his best bets from the final round of fixtures to combine into this weekend’s accumulator.
As the EFL season approaches its climax, there's a broad swathe of betting opportunities to be considered and possibly boosted by combining them into this week’s accumulator.
We’re predicting chaos when Ipswich Town welcome Watford to Portman Road as featured in Wednesday night’s EFL acca.
As we approach the business end of the EFL season, there's a plethora of betting opportunities to be grabbed and hopefully profited from in this week’s suggested accumulator.