West Brom v Swansea Preview

Swansea’s win over Sunderland was huge. It was a six-pointer against a relegation revival and relieved some of the pressure on Bob Bradley. Speculation around the American manager seems very harsh given how little time he’s been in the job and there are signs of improvement.

Swansea have won their last two home games but the admittedly shocking performance against Tottenham clouds punters’ minds. I’m much more willing to forgive a failure, especially when the reaction from the players was so positive.

On underlying shot numbers, there isn’t much between to pick between the sides. Swansea are loose in attack and defence and their expected goal difference per game is 0.3 worse than West Brom’s but the gap isn’t huge.

The points difference in the league is driven by wildly divergent conversion rates. West Brom are scoring and saving shots at a much higher rate than Swansea but over the course of a season I expect the gap to shrink.

That could begin on Wednesday with a Swansea win (draw no bet) at 9/5.