West Brom vs Burnley Preview: Clarets Travel to The Hawthorns in Dire Away Form
Rafael Mbeki ·
Last updated 23 August 2026. This one is straightforward. West Brom at home. Burnley away. If you have watched Burnley travel anywhere recently, you already know what is coming. The data confirms it. The question is whether West Brom have the desire to make it count on their own patch.
The State of West Brom
The Baggies are sitting fourth in the Championship after one game played. They won their opener. Three points, two goals scored, one conceded. That is a solid start. Their last five games across competitions show three wins, a draw, and a loss, with eight goals scored and three conceded. That is a team that knows how to put the ball in the net.
The thing is, they are not keeping clean sheets. Their clean sheet percentage across that last five sits at sixty percent, which sounds decent, but every Championship game they have played this season has seen both sides score. That matters. West Brom can hurt you. They can also be hurt. That is not a team you trust to shut the door when there is money on a clean sheet.
Home advantage counts for something in this league. It always has. The basics of playing on your own ground, in front of your own supporters, with no travel, no hotel, no excuses. West Brom need to use that. If they show the right attitude and compete from the first whistle, they should be too strong here.
Burnley Away From Home: A Disaster
Listen, five away games. Five defeats. Three goals scored. Thirteen conceded. That is not a blip. That is a pattern. That is a mentality problem. No team concedes thirteen goals in five away matches because of bad luck. They concede that many because they are not competing hard enough when the ground is not their own.
Over their last ten games in total, Burnley have won nothing. Seven losses and three draws. Six goals scored. Nineteen conceded. Nineteen. In ten games. The accountability has to start somewhere at that club because those are unacceptable numbers for a side that considers itself a Championship contender.
Their home form is marginally less catastrophic. Five home games in the last stretch produced no wins, three draws, and two losses. They managed a clean sheet once in those five. Once. The standards have dropped badly and the question for their manager is whether anyone in that dressing room has the desire to fix it or whether they have accepted mediocrity as the norm.
The thing is, this is Burnley away from home against a team that just won their opener. The Clarets travel to the Hawthorns with zero away wins to their name in recent memory and a goals against column that should embarrass everyone involved.
Head to Head
No head to head data is available for this fixture. We work with what we have. What we have tells us everything we need to know about the respective trajectories of these two sides right now.
Injury News
No injury information has been confirmed in the data at this stage. Both squads appear to be available in full. If that changes in the days leading up to Sunday, we will update accordingly. As it stands, there are no reported absences to factor in for either side.
The market is essentially calling this close to a coin flip with a slight lean away from the home side. I do not buy that. Burnley have not won away from home. Full stop. Their away record over five games is catastrophic. The market is giving them too much credit based on reputation rather than recent form and recent form is all that matters going into a Sunday afternoon fixture.
The draw no bet on West Brom is sitting at around 1.95. That is your safety net if you want one. You back West Brom to win and if it finishes level you get your money back. Given what Burnley have shown on their travels, that is a sensible way to approach this.
My Call
West Brom to win. Draw no bet at around 1.95. One bet. Backed with conviction. Burnley have shown nothing on the road to suggest they can come to the Hawthorns and get a result. West Brom are fresh off a win, playing at home, and facing a side that has conceded thirteen goals in five away matches. The attitude has to be right for the home side and there is no excuse for it not to be.
Burnley need to show some accountability and some desire if they are going to compete here. Based on recent evidence, I will believe it when I see it. End of.