With West Brom currently six points behind league leaders Bournemouth and four behind second-placed Fulham, the Baggies have a great chance to potentially close the gap at the top of the Championship table with a home clash against 14th-placed Middlesbrough this afternoon.

Albion's previous league outing saw them beat Hull City 1-0 thanks to a goal from Karlan Grant at The Hawthorns, putting them in a good position to secure another positive result this time around.

Regarding which players Ismael could select in his starting XI to take on Neil Warnock's team, who were beaten 3-1 by Luton Town in midweek, we feel that one player who featured in the match against Hull and should be in the starting XI today is Adam Reach.

Why Reach must start

After replacing the injured Kean Bryan in midweek, Reach had 51 touches of the ball, completed 26 passes (including three key passes), made two crosses, created one big chance, won two duels and completed one successful dribble.  That earned him an overall match rating of 7.1/10 from SofaScore, highlighting how useful he was for the Baggies when called upon. So far this season, the 28-year-old - who is currently valued at £2.52m by Transfermarkt - has made 12 appearances for the Baggies across all competitions. However, he had only played 12 minutes of action throughout his three previous Championship appearances for the Baggies prior to the Hull game, which suggests that his place in the team has diminished somewhat considering that he had a prolonged run in the team between mid-September and early October. Now that he managed to have a good performance against Hull, we think Reach - who has been described as a "top player" by former Baggies boss Tony Pulis when the duo were both at Sheffield Wednesday - should return to the starting XI against Middlesbrough to see if he can deliver another solid showing and start another consistent run of appearances for them. Also, with Reach having made 77 appearances for Middlesbrough earlier in his career, we believe that he may have an additional motivation to show his former club what they are missing this afternoon. In other news: Steve Madeley drops fresh West Brom transfer claim that’ll leave Baggies fans fuming