West Bromwich Albion
In
Nicolas Anelka Free
Goran Popov (Dynamo Kiev) Loan
Diego Lugano (Paris St Germain) Free
Matej Vydra (Udinese) Loan
Zoltan Gera (Unattached) Free
Out
Marc Antoine-Fortune (Wigan Athletic) Free
Gonzalo Jara (Nottingham Forest) Free
Jerome Thomas (Crystal Palace) Free
James Hurst (Crawley Town) Free
Positives: A very good first season from Steve Clarke would have brought a bit of optimism to the Hawthorns for the coming season. A solid base of players which includes Ben Foster in goal and Gareth McAuley and Jonas Olsson at centre-back,
with Claudio Yacob and Youssouf Mulumbu shoveling the coal in the
midfield engine room with Shane Long a constant menace up front. They have the ability to finish top half this season with the acquisition of Matej Vydra the one to watch out for since he was voted championship player of the year last season with Watford.
Negatives: Romelu Lukaku is a loss to them. He scored 17 league goals for them last season and even though they have replaced him with Vydra and also the Nicolas Anelka they don't offer the brute physicality that Lukaku offered which was a lot of times last season their main focal point of their attack. Also a genuine lack of pace may hurt them in some games when they would not offer a genuine counter attack to teams who would have a lot of the ball for example. Still 10th place I think is a good reasonable bet for them.
Prediction: 10th
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