da cassino： West Brom may have finally broken their winless hoodoo, but Slaven Bilic and his men have a lot of work to do if they are to remain in the Premier League.
da fezbet： The Baggies still occupy a place in the drop zone, some seven points off Crystal Palace in 15th position, who they face this weekend. If they lose that game, then the relegation dogfight will quickly look less competitive.
And that’s something Albion cannot afford going into the festive period.
They’ll need a decent January transfer window to solve most of their issues, though the chances that the Croatian will be backed by penny-pinching chairman Guochuan Lai seem rather unlikely.
One way around this could be solved by offloading some deadwood amongst their Championship-winning squad, starting with the likes of Charlie Austin.
Once the striker is out the door, the next on the list has to be veteran left-back Kieran Gibbs, who is just not getting into the side at the minute, so it’s pretty pointless having someone on his wages around.
The 31-year-old has not been seen since his red card against Everton in the second game of the season, when the Baggies leaked five goals. Bilic blasted his left-back for being “stupid” after the match.
In his absence, Bilic’s backline has leaked more than one goal just twice, excluding the thrilling end-to-end encounter with Chelsea.
Gibbs has only made the bench in three of their last seven Premier League outings too, which is hardly inspiring considering he’s earning around £55k-per-week at the Hawthorns as their second-highest earner.
Even last season, we barely saw the former Arsenal star on the pitch, starting just 14 matches in the Championship, where he averaged 1.2 clearances, 1.1 tackles and 0.7 key passes per game, via WhoScored.
Given the calls for Conor Townsend to earn a contract extension, it doesn’t seem like Gibbs will be able to force his way into the side anytime soon. Therefore, it is only wise for Luke Dowling to look to offload him, he’s merely bleeding the club dry by not featuring.
AND in other news, Bilic must AXE “ruthless” Baggies star in SHOCK move vs Palace…