Football picks 26th October weekend

West Brom V Norwich

This one should be fairly straightforward to be fair, West Brom are currently sitting in 4th place, 9 points off the pacesetters Watford. This game is extremely important to them because the teams above them are picking up points thick and fast and they cant to afford to drop points, especially at home and more importantly against teams that are struggling as bad as the Canaries.
West Broms home records is impressive and have only dropped two points so far this season. Scoring goals hasn’t been a problem either, with 16 scored and only 3 conceded.

On the contrary, Norwich’s form couldn’t be any more different. Home or away they are in terrible form and are going to be in big trouble come the end of the season.
Their away record speaks for itself, (0-1-5) and only 2 goals scored and 9 conceded.

Coming to West Brom is not something that the Norwich team or their fans will be looking forward to.

With Watford starting to pull away at the top it’s vital for West Brom to pick up three points.
Norwich will huff and puff and look to keep it tight but the Baggies have way too much firepower and a full strength team to chose from.

West Brom should be good enough to win by two or three goals.

Sunderland V Fulham

Dare I say it, I’m backing Sunderland to get the three points here.
I was very impressed with the way they played against West Ham, and despite losing 3 – 1 looked like they could trouble many other teams. Kenwyne Jones was brilliant and this can only of helped his confidence. They played with a positive attitude in a fairly tough environment at Upton Park. So far at home they have been tough to play against and have kept most game tight at the back and this is reflected in the fact that there has been an average of about two goals in each home game. They seem to have finally found their feet in the premiership and have improved a good bit in the last few games. They gave Arsenal a lot of trouble at the Emirates and probably deserved something from the game.

Fulham have struggled this year. They sit in thirteenth position, but only due to goal difference. They have the same number of points as Sunderland who sit exactly three places below them. Last season in the Premiership they relied on their home form and once again how they perform at Craven Cottage is important. So far they have played six games at home, winning just the one of them, but managing three draws and two defeats. From their four away games they have just the two points. Looks like business as usual then for Fulham fans!
They are infuriating to watch at times, because they always play good against the top teams but often struggle against the lesser teams.
Konchesky is ruled out after his red card last week, whilst Bouazza joins Keller, McBride, Bullard, Christanval, Volz, Elliot, Pearce and Cook also out.



Sunderland should get a hard fought, but nonetheless vital three points against a poor travelling injury ravaged team.


PICK
Sunderland win (2.10) 3 points
West Brom –1.5 goals ( 2.21 @ pinnacle) 5 points