West Brom Look to Continue to Give Tottenham Hotspur Fits
By Aaron Coe
Tottenham Hotspur have historically had a tough time with West Bromwich Albion, meaning that Spurs can overlook their opponent Sunday at their own peril.
One might think when you have a team on one side that is looking to go top of table and on the other a side currently sitting in the relegation zone without a win, that the match would be quite lopsided. However, if you think that is the case when Tottenham Hotspur travel to the Hawthorns to face West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League, you must not know your history.
A Split Rivalry
No one is ever going to mistake the trip to West Brom for a London Derby, however, as a club West Brom has held their own historically against Tottenham. According to Transfermarkt.com in 68 matches between the two sides, Draws are actually the leader with 25 in the 68 games. Spurs have won 23 while the Baggies have come away with 10 wins. You might this is all some ancient 1990s early 2000 stuff, but you would be wrong.
In the last 10 matches between Tottenham and West Brom, which only dates back to the 2013-14 season, the record between the two teams is even. Both Spurs and Baggies have won twice, while draws took the other six meetings. Of those six draws five of them were 1-1 ties, with only the 3-3 split decision in April 2014 having more than 2 goals.
West Brom won the last meeting between the two teams and it has been more than three years since Tottenham beat West Brom, a 4-0 victory in January 2017. To find the last time Spurs won at the Hawthorns you need to go back more than five years to January 2015, when Spurs ran out 3-0 winners. Despite those successful outings it has been mostly hard luck in the rest of those 10 games including a loss and draw with West Brom in the Baggies relegation season of 2017-18.
All this said, if history tells us anything, it is to expect a tough match-up, so what else can we expect?