West Bromwich Albion’s search for their first win back in the big time rumbles on after playing out the Premier League’s first 0-0 stalemate of the season against Burnley on Monday evening.
Baggies boss Slaven Bilic somewhat made a statement with his team selection, dropping both Semi Ajayi and Kyle Bartley for the experienced duo of Ahmed Hegazi and Branislav Ivanovic.
Romaine Sawyers was also dropped whilst late summer addition Karlan Grant made his debut.
There was even a return for Darnell Furlong at right-back despite Dara O’Shea’s recent debut outing for Ireland, but the 24-year-old failed to repay the faith put in him with a disappointing display at the Hawthorns.
Albion largely dominated the game, raking in 56% possession and 13 shots to the Claret’s nine, though the visitors had the richer chances in front of goal.
And even though they kept their first clean sheet of the campaign, Furlong was particularly wasteful.
He lost possession a whopping 30 times, considering he was up against the exciting Dwight McNeil, this could have ended poorly for the Baggies whilst Furlong also landed just one accurate cross from seven attempts, committed one foul and made only 64% of his passes, via SofaScore.
On a different day, or against a more lethal player like Sadio Mane or Raheem Sterling, he’d have certainly been punished for his mistakes.
This was backed up by BirminghamLive’s review – they graded him a 6/10 and said: “McNeil had a lot of space down the left in the first half and Albion’s centre halves had to cut out crosses that came from the flank, but going forwards Furlong gave as good as he got. Deliveries were often disappointing.”
Furlong was dropped for the Southampton defeat but his performance here fails to prove why he should be trusted over O’Shea going into Monday’s tie with Brighton & Hove Albion.
He’s way more suited to playing as a wing-back, which this four-at-the-back system does not account for.
AND in other news, Baggies may have unearthed the next Shane Long in their “bull of a number nine”…