Have West Brom found the ace that fires them into the top 10?
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The last time West Brom owned a striker that scored 20 or more league goals in a single season they were in the Championship and a 35-year-old Kevin Phillips was banging them in.
Since then Baggies players have rarely seen 15 goals in a campaign, let alone the five more that would propel them into football’s goalscoring zenith.
Romelu Lukaku has come closest to achieving the feat for the Midlands outfit in the Premier League, netting 17 times on loan from Chelsea in the 2012/13 season.
It is no coincidence that the campaign was also the only time West Brom have ever cracked the top half in the division.
If recent summer signing Nacer Chadli continues to find the net at his current rate, he’ll be the first West Brom player to score 30 league goals in a season since Lee Hughes in 1998/99.
The Belgian forward has made a flying start to life at the Hawthorns, netting four goals in his first five appearances.
Operating just behind the main striker for Tony Pulis, it is perhaps ambitious to expect the £13m acquisition to maintain his red-hot form.
However, he appears quite capable of providing the cutting edge his new club have clearly been missing for some time.
Chadli’s best career haul in a league campaign came when he bagged 17 goals while plying his trade in the Dutch second division for AGOW Apeldoorn.
11 strikes for Spurs in his second term in north London points to an ability to score regularly in this division and West Brom could end up with one of the bargain’s of the season when all is said and done.
Unbeaten when their Belgian hotshot finds the net, the Baggies are 7/2 to finish in the top 10.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing
