After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, these two teams meet again at St Mary’s on Friday for a place in the Championship play-off final at Wembley. We look ahead to this match with our Southampton vs West Brom prediction and preview.
Match Preview
Following a goalless draw in the first leg of this Championship play-off tie last Sunday, Southampton and West Brom go at it again on Friday night with a winner-takes-all clash to make the final at Wembley.
The first leg was fairly uneventful, but with a place in the final against the winners of the Leeds vs Norwich tie at stake, expect more attacking intent at St Mary’s in this second leg.
Southampton dominated possession (63.4%) in the first leg at the Hawthorns, which is hardly surprising considering only Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have averaged more successful passes both overall and in the opposition half, open-play sequences comprising 10+ passes and build-up attacks (open-play sequences comprising 10+ passes that end with a shot or touch in the opposition’s box) per game than Southampton in 2023-24 across the top four tiers in England.
Russell Martin’s side were always among the automatic promotion potentials this season, but the quality of Leicester and Ipswich outdid them in the end.
They won 87 points and still placed outside the top three – something only Charlton (88 in 1997-98) have done in EFL second-tier history. It was also Southampton’s third-highest points tally in a single league season, after winning 88 in the Championship in 2011-12 and 92 in the third tier on the way to promotion a season earlier.
West Brom – who had the oldest starting XI on average across the 2023-24 Championship (28 years, 175 days) – ended the season in poor form, collecting just nine points from their final eight games before the first-leg draw.
Only Huddersfield (1), Birmingham (1) and Rotherham (0) won fewer Championship away games than West Brom (2) in 2024 prior to the play-offs, with Carlos Corberán’s side failing to win any of their last four such games of the campaign (D2 L2).
The Baggies are looking to reach their third Football League play-off final in what is their fifth participation, previously doing so in 1993 (third tier) and 2007 (Championship). Indeed, they’ve failed to progress in two of their three semi-finals in the second tier, most recently to Aston Villa in 2019.
Southampton vs West Brom Head-to-Head
The first leg of this play-off tie finished 0-0 despite 26 shots between the two sides, although just five of those were on target.
Southampton have won seven of their last nine meetings with West Brom, with the Baggies’ only success in this run coming in April 2021, a 3-0 win at home in the Championship.
Saints secured wins both home and away against West Brom in the regular Championship season.
Their 2-0 victory at the Hawthorns in February came courtesy of goals from Ryan Fraser and David Brooks. Three months earlier, Southampton enjoyed a 2-1 home win over WBA with Adam Armstrong scoring a winner 11 minutes from time after Kyle Bartley had equalised 14 minutes earlier.
Armstrong’s winning goal was one of his 20 home goal involvements (12 goals, 8 assists) in the Championship in 2023-24 – more than any other player in the competition.
West Brom have only won two of their last 27 away games against Southampton across all competitions (D8 L17), losing each of their last three visits since a 2-1 Premier League win in December 2016.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Friday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Southampton vs West Brom Prediction
Southampton are the favourites to reach the play-off final, with the Opta supercomputer’s pre-match simulations seeing Martin’s side progress 63.0% of the time. That’s partly thanks to them sealing victory inside 90 minutes in 51.9% of match projections.
A draw would take the game to extra-time after the first leg also ended level, while an outright West Brom win inside 90 minutes occurred in 23.2% of sims.
Overall, Leeds are still the favourites to win promotion to the Premier League via the Championship play-offs this season. They were promoted in 35.5% of the latest Opta supercomputer simulations, ahead of Southampton (31.3%), Norwich (16.6%) and West Brom (16.5%).
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