The Championship’s yellow card amnesty is on the horizon – but there are still a host of West Bromwich Albion players who must be careful in the coming weeks if they’re to avoid a two-match suspension. Just at a time when Carlos Corberan wants all of his options – or certainly as many as possible – available to him, to lose a key player now for a couple of games present the manager with an avoidable headache.
Corberan has some decent options and depth again after recovering players from AFCON, while the club used the January transfer window to beef up their attacking options. He’ll hopefully have the likes of Kyle Bartley, Josh Maja and Matt Phillips back in the foreseeable future, too, but there remain positions in the squad in which players are especially important.
Darnell Furlong is one such player. The right-back is currently enjoying arguably his best season at the club since his first campaign, during which he played his part in helping the club secure promotion under Slaven Bilic. With the summer deadline day addition of Pipa, that has brought much needed competition which Furlong has duly risen to. He has still picked up too many cautions, some of them unnecessary, others rather unfortunate.
Furlong, prior to the trip to Hull City on Saturday, sits on nine yellows for the campaign, having collected bookings in recent games with Birmingham City, Cardiff City and Southampton. He must now negotiate the next four matches, against Hull, Coventry City, former club QPR and then Huddersfield without picking up another, or he’ll miss two matches. Furlong is very much the most at risk player in the squad currently
Leave a Reply