West Bromwich Albion carry a seven-game home league unbeaten run against Ipswich Town into Saturday’s Championship meeting, a sequence that has kept the visitors waiting since March 1999 for a league win at the Hawthorns. Albion have taken five of those seven home games and drawn the other two, while Ipswich’s only league victory in the most recent meeting came in October, when they won 1-0.
That result left Ipswich with a chance to complete their first league double over West Brom since 1998-99, a marker that gives this fixture a sharper edge than most late-season games. West Brom’s record at home against Ipswich is hard to ignore, especially as they have won four of their last seven league matches after taking just four points from 27 beforehand, a run that changed the mood around the team.
The numbers also work in Albion’s favour as the season closes. They have lost only one of their final home league games in their last 22 seasons outside the top flight, that setback coming against Birmingham in 2003-04, and they have won their last four Championship finales at home. Ipswich, though, have already shown under Kieran McKenna that they can unsettle West Brom, even if their only previous away league trip to the Hawthorns under him ended in a 2-0 defeat in November 2023.
There is a wrinkle in that record. Under McKenna, the only opponent Ipswich have lost both of their first two away league games against is Preston, which means West Brom have already interrupted what has otherwise been a fairly steady away return for the manager’s side. That makes Saturday less about history alone than about whether Ipswich can turn a long pursuit into a first league double and whether West Brom can keep one of their more stubborn home runs intact.