Promotion in our own hands but still possible for 21 other Championship teams.

With all the talk of promotion being in our own hands, people are still missing how close this division still is. With just 10 games left for most teams, eleven for a few, there is still 21 other clubs that could overall the Albion and clinch promotion. Probably a very long shot and i am sure most bookies would offer silly odds on Scunthorpe gaining promotion, however, technically they can still leap frog the Albion.

The Baggies need 25 points to secure promotion, thats 8 wins and a draw, of course this goes down if Notts Forest lose or draw any of their remaining ten fixtures. Forest cannot seem to get a result away from home anymore, the last away win being ironically their 3 – 1 destruction of the Albion some 6 away games back.

Should forest lose just 1 of their remaining 5 away games and the Albion beat Swansea this week, Albion will need just 6 wins and a draw to guarantee premiership football next season.

There are all sorts of twists and turns still to come as the season comes to it’s crescendo, however, the Albion have probably got the harder of the run ins with games at Swansea, Reading, Watford, Doncaster and Crystal Palace to come and home games to play versus Preston, Coventry, Leicester, Middlesborough and Barnsley.

Forest have the following away games, Barnsley, Newcastle, Bristol City, Blackpool and Scunthorpe. Their home games are Peterborough, Crystal Palace, Cardiff, Ipswich, Plymouth.

The 3rd team in the race, Swansea have a run in with games at QPR, Cardiff, Blackpool, Bristol City and Sheffield United. Their home games are of course Albion tommorrow night, followed by Ipswich, Scunthorpe, Barnsley and Doncaster.

Looking at just the 3 most likely teams for the 2nd promotion spot it is inevitable that there will be some twists and turns, that the Albion are not certainty’s for the 2nd spot, however, it seems pretty certain that Newcastle will be promoted before the last day looms, they need just 7 victories from 11 games.

Will the battle be won on the final day of the season? Quite possibly, however, the Albion players seem to be up for the battle and are issuing their war crys already. Robert Koren today said:

“There are still ten games until the end of the season and we need to focus on ourselves.

“We have everything in our hands and we cannot look too much at what Nottingham Forest or anyone else are doing.

“We need to get as many points as possible from these ten games.

“We are full of confidence and we feel we are good enough to go up.

“But we need to show that week in, week out.”

With Forest suffering away day jitters and Albion on a roll, by this time next week the picture may well look much rosier for the Albion. If stats are anything to go by, tommorrows game should be an easy victory for the Baggies as Albion are the Championships top scorers on 71 goals and Swansea the lowest on just 31, what a shame it does not work like that.