Will this pre  season friendly give any clues for the season ?

Of course it will give some bbut in the build up to the game Nigel Adkins has been very cagey and admitted on the Clubs official website that the starting line up tonight will not neccessarily be the one that kicks off against Leeds.

There are two schools of thought for pre season matches at this stage, the first is that you should be looking to get your first choice team together and getting used to each other, the second and th camp that Adkins seems to fall into is that, its still about giving the members of the squad game time and that the main work is done on the training ground.

He has a point, in this day and age clubs rarely put out the same starting XI two weeks in a row and even if they do substitutions etc mean that the team that finishes a game can be a lot different from the one that started, that being the case then it isnt as crucial as it was in the past to get that starting XI on the pitch pre season.

But of course Adkins realises that at this stage you do ned to be getting some sort of shape and that being the case i would expect him to put out a strong line up and leave experimentation to the latter stages of the game, he has to balance getting his squad right against not being routed by a superior side and team morale being dented.

For their part West Brom look to be putting out a fairly strong side, it was an inexperienced team that was beaten 3-0 at Rochdale last night, a game which Roy Hodgson left his head coach to take charge of the team, this being the case tonights game looks to be one they are taking a little more seriously, but with a game at Bristol City hot on the heels of it on Saturday and the Premier starting a week later than the Championship, their pre season is a week behind ours, so it may well be a strong squad coming, but I would expect plenty of changes to the team during the game with perhaps even virtually a different team in each half.   

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