West Brom’s injury update and absentees, and their targeted return dates

Like all other clubs in the EFL, West Brom will have to deal with missing players at various points of this season. These 46-game campaigns are gruelling and demanding, and challenge the fitness and well-being of those who seek to battle their way through it and come out the other side.

Away from absence due to health and fitness, there is the risk of suspension too. A red card will see you miss matches immediately, while accumulating yellow cards over a period of time also leads to a ban. Albion and Carlos Corberan will be looking to cope with the testing calendar ahead of them in 2023/24 and maintain as healthy a group as possible over the course of the coming months.

This is the state of play in the treatment room at the moment…

Adam Reach

Absence: Quad injury. Reach limped off at Burton in pre-season having suffered a recurrence of his quad issue that had struck him down in April.

What Corberan said: “Reach suffered one important injury last year. With the injury you have two possibilities, make a surgery or a more conservative treatment without the surgery. The difference is about how much the tendon is affected, our medical staff understood the tendon wasn’t damaged enough to proceed with surgery and have treatment of some months.

“Unfortunately in football 50% that damage the muscle and don’t have surgery you have a risk to have the injury again and unfortunately this is exactly what happened with Reach. As soon as you have the same injury the second time you need to proceed with surgery. We’ve suffered the consequence of the injury again. Now he is going to have surgery and in the next four months we are not going to watch him in the team.”

Estimated return date: Reach has successfully undergone surgery and will be sidelined until December at the very earliest.

Daryl Dike

Absence: Achilles. Dike suffered the injury in the first half of Albion’s recent win at Stoke City, and he will now be missing for a number of months after his third serious injury during his 15-month spell at Albion. He has since undergone successful surgery.

What Tony Strudwick said: “The plan was to get Daryl back around November, December time,” Strudwick added. “He’s progressing well, his operation went really well. He went to the States. He’s back in, his attitude and application has been fantastic.

Estimated return date: It’s hard to know exactly when Dike will be back wearing an Albion shirt, but what is for sure is that it won’t be until December at the absolute earliest. With such injuries though, it could be that we’ve seen the last of Dike in 2023.

Martin Kelly

Absence: Kelly was sent on loan to Wigan for the rest of last season in January in order to play regularly again, and he turned in a man of the match performance on his debut in a goalless draw with Blackburn, but he suffered a serious knee injury towards the end of the game and required surgery and a spell on the sidelines.

What Tony Strudwick said: “The same goes for Martin Kelly, who should be back soon – he’s on the grass with the sports science team and we want him integrated back in in August. Martin, when a player gets injured, he was very deliberate in how he wanted to push it forward. He’s gone away and he’s come back in a really good space.

Estimated return date: Kelly is set to return to first-team training at some point this month.

Absence: Diangana received a kick at the end of the first half in the win over Middlesbrough last February and was forced off shortly after the restart after struggling to cope with it. It turns out that he suffered ligament damage in his foot.

What Tony Strudwick said: “On Grady, his surgery went well, really successful. There were several stages to his rehabilitation process. He’s back on the grass now, he’s going to be integrated back in in the next two to three weeks. That’s a real positive. He wants to get back as quickly as he can, and he’ll be pushing for that return – it’s in line with our expectations, but possibly even a bit better.”

Estimated return date: Diangana, like Kelly, is due back sooner rather than later.