Sitting pretty in sixth place in the Premier League, West Brom have surprised the majority of people with their positive and refreshing approach since the beginning of the season. While it’s been frontman Peter Odemwingie who has gathered most of the headlines, the last few gameweeks have seen Chris Brunt really make his mark for the Baggies.
With most expecting Graeme Dorrans to be the star man in Roberto di Matteo’s midfield at the start of the season, Brunt, initially, did nothing to disprove this theory with a mere six Fantasy Premier League (FPL) points in his first three games, but since then, he has not just been the best points scorers in West Brom’s midfield, but one of the best in the league overall.
Brunt’s last five games read 6,5,6,5,11, which includes him picking up the maximum 3 Bonus Points in each of his last two games. He has bagged 1 goal so far and is second only to Nani in terms of assists, with 5 to his name already. Sitting on 39 pts, Brunt, priced at just £5.5m and owned by only 2% of managers, is sixth overall in the game in terms of “value“.
Pretty much a permanent fixture in the side, he has missed just 13 minutes of the season so far and seems to be the Baggies chief set-piece taker, as well as taking the odd penalty, too. A look at his home and away tallies shows there is no difference to Brunt’s output. He has 18 points at the Hawthorns and 21 points on the road; given that West Brom’s four away games have been at Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Man United, that’s a considerably impressive haul.
Brunt stacked up a points total of 121 in the 2008/09 campaign that saw his club relegated, but this time round Di Matteo’s tactics and personnel look like giving West Brom a far greater chance of survival, which is illustrated in the fact that with just eight games gone, Brunt has already picked up a third of that total.
With (FUL, blp, MCY, whm, wig, STK) up next for the Baggies, there’s no reason for any prospective Brunt owners to doubt his upcoming potential returns, given that he approaches Gameweek 9 off the back of an 11 point performance at Old Trafford.
