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It’s the battle of the Wests next weekend – Nuno Espirito Santo’s West Ham United versus James Morrison’s West Bromwich Albion at the London Stadium.
And the Baggies will be making the trip to the capital with plenty of confidence. At least, that is the view of former West Brom defender Paul Robinson.
He watched on as Nuno’s off-colour outfit slipped up at home to Southampton last time out. The Hammers boss is under fire once again, another disappointing performance at the London Stadium seeing West Ham United drop to third.
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West Brom will leapfrog the Hammers with a win on Saturday. Given that West Ham have won only half of their home matches – and the Baggies have won three of their away fixtures – Robinson certainly feels that Morrison’s promotion-seeking outfit are capable of upsetting the applecart.
Speaking on The Express and Star podcast, Robinson feels that West Brom can get nerves jangling at a stadium where anxiety spreads like a plague.
“We need to go to West Ham, put on a good show, give them a good game, and take the game to them,” says a man who played over 200 games for Albion between 2003 and 2010.
“Why be afraid of a team like West Ham? If you go and put them on the back foot, their fans are going to turn.”
Southampton roared into a 2-0 lead inside 11 minutes on Saturday. West Ham have now fallen behind inside the first-half eight times this season. What’s more, they have conceded the first goal three times in the opening 20 minutes three times on home soil, and failed to win any of those games; Charlton, QPR and Southampton.
Nuno will be without Konstantinos Mavropanos as well. Robinson feels that bully-boy West Brom striker Aune Heggebo could have a lot of joy against a Mavropanos-less West Ham side, while Jimmy-Jay Morgan and Myhre can cause problems with their clever movement between the lines.
“The West Ham game might be a great game for Heggebo and for JJ [Morgan],” Robinson adds. “If West Brom pick up those pockets like they did against Preston [a 1-1 draw last weekend], they could cause West Ham a lot of problems because you know what the fans are like down there; when they turn, they go.
“For me, the most important thing is to keep the West Ham fans quiet, get behind them, grow into the game, and build from there, because that’s what you’ve got to do against teams like them.
“What can we do to hurt a team like West Ham? Does JJ play on the left, keep Felix in the 10, Heggebo up top, and then Isaac [Price] on the right?
“That’s an exciting front four where you go, ‘Go on then, we’ll let you four go, and we’ll let [midfielders Jason] Molumby provide the legs and [Alex] Mowatt sit in there and break things up.’ For me, it’s exciting. It’s an exciting team to look at, and it looks good on paper.”