West Brom vs Birmingham Prediction: Can Blues make a bad week worse for Baggies?

For the second weekend in a row, West Bromwich Albion will take in part in a West Midlands derby as they welcome Birmingham City to The Hawthorns on Saturday afternoon (15:00) in the Championship.

The Baggies lost against bitter rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in the FA Cup fourth round last Sunday 2-0 in a game that was soured by fan violence that halted play late in the second half.

In the league, West Brom have won three of their last five while losing the other two. Birmingham are unbeaten in the Championship under Tony Mowbray, who used to manage the Baggies 15 years ago.

Match Odds

West Brom are 8/13 to come away the victors in this local derby. A draw can be backed at 3/1, while Birmingham are 4/1 to pile more misery on the Baggies.

Both teams to score is valued at 10/11 and over 2.5 goals are priced at the same odds.

Team News

West Brom duo Semi Ajayi and Grady Diangana remain unavailable as they are partaking in the Africa Cup of Nations with Nigeria and DR Congo respectively. Trio Matt Phillips, Jayson Molumby and Josh Maja are sidelined through injury.

Alfie Chang, George Hall and Lukas Jutkiewicz are in the treatment room for Birmingham.

Draw or Birmingham (Double chance) @ 6/5

Following the defeat to Wolves and the inquiry from the FA into the violence at the game, it hasn't been the best week for West Brom and the last thing they will wanting right now is another local derby.

They did create some decent chances against Wolves but they weren't clinical enough. It is an issue that has surrounded them at times this season, and it could hinder them against Birmingham.

The Blues were in a similar situation at the weekend in their 3-0 defeat to Leicester in the FA Cup. It was a game of two halves in which Mowbray's men could have and should have put the tie to bed in the first half with the amount of efforts on goal they had. They too need to be more ruthless if they wish to charge up the league table.

If Birmingham can create 19 chances against the league leaders, they can certainly cause Albion a few problems and you'd back them to be more accurate on this occasion.

Albion have proven to be a good team in the second tier this season, as evidenced in their league position (fifth). But their inconsistent results in recent weeks does open the door for Birmingham to come to The Hawthorns and continue their unbeaten status in the Championship under Mowbray's stewardship.

We aren't entirely confident on backing them to win, so we feel the added insurance of a draw makes this selection a lot more appealing.

Over 2.5 goals @ 10/11

This is a fixture that has been able to put on a show in recent years with three 3-2 results in the last 10 meetings. In those last 10 results, over 2.5 goals was a winning selection in five of them and we are confident that it can deliver on Saturday.

It has already landed this season as Birmingham came from a goal down to win 3-1 at St Andrew's back in October in what turned out to be former boss John Eustace's last game in charge.