West Brom injury latest as Carlos Corberan offers updates on a host of his players who have been hit by injury
Matt Phillips will miss the next four months of West Bromwich Albion’s Championship campaign after Carlos Corberan confirmed that he’d suffered a hamstring tear in the defeat to Leicester City last weekend. Winger Phillips, Albion’s longest-serving player, has produced some of the most impressive, sustained form of his entire Albion career this term.
As was the case last season, though, Phillips will be unavailable to Corberan throughout this winter and into the spring after the severity of his injury was confirmed this week. Phillips abruptly pulled up, clutching his hamstring, just before halftime in the 1-2 reverseZ to the league-leading Foxes at The Hawthorns on Saturday.
It’s a significant blow, undoubtedly, to Albion, Corberan and Phillips himself. His frustrations there and then, as he punched the turf and contemplated another spell on the sidelines, were evident in the moment the disaster struck.
“Unfortunately, I have to give bad news that I’ve suffered a lot, not only because he’s an important player, but you suffer a lot when someone like him who loves his job, the professional he is and the dedication he has suffers an injury. It’s hard for him to accept and for us to see,” Corberan said.
“He has a 3cm injury in the hamstring; it means 50% of the tendon is involved. Now there is a decision to make between surgery and not, but the timing is going to be around four months, even with surgery or not. It’s difficult to accept. When we were playing with a line of five [defensively], we depended a lot on him to play as a wingback. I like to play with a line of five with one attacking player. We had three centre-backs, one full-back and one winger.
“For me, we couldn’t rotate him in these games. The first time I thought we could rotate him was last week, when he started against Ipswich. He started on the bench (at Cardiff) to reduce minutes and give minutes to Sarmiento, with the idea of being less fatigued and taking care of him, a player we consider to have special attention.
“Look how football is—the day you give rest in the week, you have the player injured. Sometimes injuries are very difficult to prevent. You need to improve your process of training, managing the rest with the values the players can show you. But the injury was suffered in a simple action; unfortunately, it has affected his hamstring a lot and he’s not going to be with the group the next few months.
“The only thing that we want is that he keeps strong and be focused like he will to recover, because he’s someone important to us, even if for only the last few months. I want to see Phillips playing with the team again.”
Another current injury worry is that of captain Jed Wallace; flattened by Cardiff centre half Mark McGuinness in Albion’s recent victory in the Welsh capital, Wallace missed the Leicester meeting and is a doubt for Sunderland and perhaps even Rotherham, but Corberan was generally more optimistic on his chances.
“Normally with Wallace’s injury he will be around one month or three weeks out, but normally with the character of Wallace you are going to reduce this time,” Corberan explained. “Every day he is feeling better, now is starting to have mobility in the arm, it means…it is very difficult to see him against Sunderland, he would surprise me a lot, but with his character and how he manages, he will reduce the time we estimated.”
Daryl Dike is a player who Albion fans can hopefully expect to see return over the course of the Christmas period. Having ruptured his Achilles at Stoke City in April, the US international hasn’t been seen since but he’s on track to return in the coming weeks and join in with the rest of the group to provide another attacking option.
“He is still working with the medical staff; he will start to have some part now with the physical staff; I think in around a couple of weeks he can be involved to work with the group,” Corberan revealed.
Fellow long-term absentees Martin Kelly and Adam Reach are now back in training, but both are likely to be handed Premier League 2 minutes in order to expose them to match minutes before they’re included or considered for Championship action. “Now I need to make the decision about when they are ready to play with the under-21s, and with those minutes they will start to have more possibilities, of course.”
Corberan also confirmed that if Kyle Bartley finishes this week of training as normal, then he will also travel to Sunderland on Friday. Bartley missed the defeat to Leicester with a minor hamstring complaint but has been back on the grass in the early stages of this week: “He has completed training today; if he progresses normally in the week, he will be available to be with the squad.”
