Pompey and Mowbray return to the Hawthorns after 16 years

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·24 January 2025

Pompey and Mowbray return to the Hawthorns after 16 years

West Bromwich Albion v Portsmouth; The Hawthorns, Saturday 25th January 2025, 3pm

Tony Mowbray’s second spell at Albion started with a disappointing defeat at Middlesbrough, but itwill have left the new Baggies boss with a clear idea of where improvements need to be made. With only a few days on the training field, he is unlikely to be able to have addressed too much, but he will at least have made a start to the implementation of his philosophy amongst the squad.

It’s somewhat ironic that Mowbray’s first Hawthorns opponents, Portsmouth, haven’t played at the Shrine since Mogga’s first spell in charge. The two clubs have both been through a lot since then, as has Mowbray of course, and the south coast club are in their first season in the second tier since 2011/12 when the financial extravagances of their Premier League era started to bite. That campaign saw the first of back-to-back relegations which saw them spend four seasons in League Two before another seven in League Two until they finally won promotion last summer.

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This season has been something of a struggle for John Mousinho’s team although back-to-back home wins over Middlesbrough and Stoke City, Albion’s last two opponents, have lifted them three points clear of the bottom three. 22 of their 29 points have come at Fratton Park and, after winning 3-0 there in September, the Baggies will be looking to complete their first league double of the season on Saturday. Pompey have won just once on the road, at QPR in October in what was their first victory of the campaign, and have lost their last six away games in all competitions since a 2-2 draw at Swansea City at the end of November, with an aggregate scored of 15-1, including a 2-0 defeat at League One Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup.

Mowbray has a new player to add to his squad following the signing of Northern Irish international midfielder, Isaac Price, from Standard Liège for a fee thought to be in the region of £2.5m. He is unlikely to go straight into the starting line up and, with Kyle Bartley still not training, I would not be surprised to be another unchanged line up from the start. The one change I would be tempted to make would be to introduce Diakité into the side in place of Alex Mowatt. I feel that the Malian was unlucky to lose his spot and I’m not sure Mowatt has done enough to secure his own inclusion.

The medical staff may dictate that other players should be rested but, if not, Diakité is the only obvious candidate to come back into the team. Transfer speculation surrounding Grady Diangana might put his inclusion in doubt, but it will be down to Mowbray to determine if Grady is in the right frame of mind to play.

If Albion are serious about maintaining a top six push, this is a match they should be winning, and I’m sure Mogga will be anxious to get a first win under his belt. His post-match comments on Tuesday were all about giving the players the confidence to take risks around the opposing penalty area – I’m sure he will have been reinforcing that message all week and we will see whether it has had the desired effect.

History

It’s not unusual to have the same Albion manager in charge of successive Hawthorns fixture against an opponent – it is unprecedented when those games are more than sixteen years apart! The last time Portsmouth played at the Shrine was in a Premier League fixture in December 2008 during Tony Mowbray’s first spell as Baggies boss. For the record, Tony Adams was in charge of Pompey, the second of three permanent managers the south coast club had that season.

That match was, of course, the first since the two clubs had met at Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final earlier in the year, a match controversially decided by Kanu’s winner set up by Milan Baroš who had controlled the ball with his hand. A few years earlier, Portsmouth were the opponents for the final day of the 2004/05 campaign when a 2-0 victory for the Baggies secured their Great Escape from relegation, thereby sending Pompey’s rivals Southampton down much to the delight of every supporter in the Hawthorns that day.

Portsmouth’s previous visit to the Hawthorns was in the 2001/02 season and saw a rare goalfest from a Gary Megson team. Jason Roberts, Lárus Sigurðsson, Scott Dobie and Igor Bališ all scored before half time before Roberts added his second with ten minutes left to make the final score 5-0. That matched Albion’s record win over Pompey which had previously been achieved in back-to-back Hawthorns encounters in 1950 and 1951.

Albion haven’t been beaten at home by Portsmouth in the 21st century. Pompey’s last win at the Hawthorns was in Feburary 1998 when Alan Ball’s team, who were bottom of the table at kick-off, won 3-0 thanks to goals from David Hillier, Steve Claridge and Alan McLoughlin. Denis Smith had taken over a couple of months earlier and were unable to prevent Albion sliding out of the top six winning just two of the final sixteen games of the season to finish 10th.