Birmingham City welcome West Brom to St. Andrew’s the Championship’s Friday night fixture. Both sides have had somewhat strong starts to the season but need a win to give them more momentum for the Play-offs.
Birmingham currently sit tenth in the Championship after ten games. With four wins, three draws and three losses, The Blues have 15 points so far, one point away from the Play-offs.
In the last five games in all competitions, Birmingham have one win, three losses and a draw. Lee Buchanan was sent off in the 88th minute against Watford, but with the game still 0 - 0 at that point, it looked like The Blues were set for a point. However, goals from Mileta Rajovic and Ryan Andrews in extra time gave Watford the 2 - 0 win. Despite Jay Stansfield opening the scoring against Preston, an own goal from Krystian Bielik and a goal from Milutin Osmajic gave Preston the 2 - 1 win.
The visit from QPR ended in a goalless draw despite Birmingham’s 12 shots with four of them on target. The trip to Norwich was painful for The Blues with Gabriel Sara and Jonathan Rowe both scoring in the second half to give The Canaries the 2 - 0 win.
The last outing for The Blues was against Huddersfield in the midweek game. Koji Miyoshi and Jordan James scored with Siriki Dembele picking up a brace in the 4 - 1 win, with Michal Helik grabbing a consolation goal for Huddersfield.
West Brom, on the other hand, sit fifth in the Championship with 16 points. In ten games, West Brom have four wins, four draws and two losses, leaving them eight points from automatic promotion.
In the last five games, West Brom have two wins and three draws. The trip to Ashton Gate to face Bristol City ended in a goalless draw. Though The Baggies did manage 14 shots, they couldn’t register a single one on target. There was another draw for West Brom, this time against Watford, though they did manage to get on the scoreboard this time. Tom Ince opened the scoring for The Hornets with John Swift equalising. Jed Wallace then put The Baggies ahead but before halftime Matheu Martins equalised as the game finished 2 - 2.
The next draw was another 0 - 0 draw, this time against Millwall. West Brom did manage three shots on target but couldn’t convert any of them. However, The Baggies bounced back with a 4 - 0 win over Preston with Darnell Furlong, Alex Mowatt, Matthew Phillips and Kyle Bartley on the scoresheet.
Most recently, West Brom took on Sheffield Wednesday. Swift scored again for West Brom against Sheffield Wednesday, this being the only goal in the 1 - 0 win for The Baggies.
Birmingham and West Brom have met an impressive 137 times in their histories, with the first meeting coming all the way back in 1886. West Brom are dominant in this fixture with 61 wins in comparison to Birmingham’s 38 wins. In fact, a Blues win is just as frequent as a draw, with 38 draws in the fixture.
