Daryl Dike's return hailed as big West Brom boost
Daryl Dike’s return to fitness comes as a significant plus to new Albion head coach Carlos Corberan, according to under-21s chief Richard Beale.
Striker Dike marked his comeback from three months injured on the sidelines with a consolation goal from the penalty spot during a pre-planned 45 minutes of action in Monday night’s 5-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest at The Hawthorns.
It has been a frustrating first 10 months in England with the Baggies for £7million man Dike. The 22-year-old made just a single start in January before a serious hamstring injury, then came a similar setback with his thigh at the beginning of this season.
Corberan watched on at The Hawthorns on Monday having selected Dike, defender Martin Kelly and goalkeeper David Button to feature for Beale’s under-21s against Forest, as well as frozen-out frontman Kenneth Zohore, who was the half-time change for Dike.
Dike was a physical presence for the hosts during the 45 minutes he featured. He won and converted a penalty to make it 2-1, but Beale’s youngsters were well beaten in PL2 action. The United States international, crucially, came through unscathed and is likely to play some part against Stoke on Saturday, prior to the World Cup break.
“Yep, I’ve just spoken to him there, we planned for him to play 45 minutes and to switch him with Kenneth,” Beale said.
“That’s a positive for the club and Daryl to get him back on the pitch, he got the goal which was nice, it was a shame we couldn’t put on a better performance with him in the team.
“He’s a really good player, a multi-million pound signing for the club.
“Having Daryl Dike back fit, whenever he’s deemed fit enough to play for the first team, is a big, big plus.”
Beale’s under-21s fell to just a second Division 2 defeat in nine with the heavy home defeat in front of almost 400 supporters.
The youngsters have been in lethal form but the inclusion of Dike and other first-team players was unable to inspire them against a bright Forest side.
Albion failed to recover from a nightmare start in falling 2-0 down after five minutes to Forest, who powered to the four-goal victory despite playing 70 minutes with 10 men.
Goalkeeper Button has been usurped by Alex Palmer as senior No.1 and made a poor mistake for the early opener. Zohore, Dike’s half-time replacement, was largely anonymous during his 45 minutes.
“We haven’t lost tonight because we had first-team players, those players make the team stronger,” added Albion’s former caretaker manager Beale.
“Those lads come in, maybe sometimes haven’t had a training session or sometimes done one session, so a little bit of rhythm, the performance tonight was just a bit low on energy.
“We made some basic mistakes and you can’t really account for that.”
Asked on the extent of Corberan’s input, Beale said: “Yeah the first-team decide who plays, that’s the manager’s call.
“Obviously David hasn’t played for a little while now, Daryl back to fitness and Martin hasn’t played recently, neither has Ken so it’s a good vehicle to get them back fit and minutes under the belt.”
