Strikers’ friendly rivalry is firing West Brom's play-off bid

The striker duo have hit it off since Thomas-Asante checked in from Salford City at the end of the summer.

United States forward Dike, at 22 two years Thomas-Asante’s junior, says the pair enjoy working closely together and are regularly battling it out in finishing drills – before spending time away from the training base.

Former Barnsley and Orlando City striker Dike, the £7million recruit whose first year at Albion was ruined by injury, scored his fourth and fifth goals of the season as Carlos Corberan’s men saw off Middlesbrough last time out.

“Absolutely it’s good, obviously we both want to start and both want to play, but it’s a great thing we have,” Dike said. “We’re very good friends, so it’s a friendly competition. You see us after training, we’re always doing finishing and other things together, we push each other hard during matches to be better players.

“You can see how hard we work for the team and how we bounce off each other.”

Dike and Thomas-Asante have yet to start up front together for the Baggies, with Corberan’s preferred 4-2-3-1 system only allowing one centre-forward role.

Thomas-Asante, the £300,000 signing, is Albion’s top scorer this term with seven goals in all competitions, with Dike two behind.

Corberan said prior to the Boro game he was unconcerned by his squad’s lack of a runaway leading goalscorer.

Dike added on the strikers’ union: “We just get along, you know?

“Naturally we play the same position, so it’s always going to be him versus me in training.

“Or we’ll be working together in the same drill, we’re talking and competing and pushing to always get better.

“We’ll do finishing drills together, having that friendly competition, it’s great because it makes you get better as a player.

“And then on top of that, he’s similar to me, so we just naturally get along. We’ll go get dinner and everything, it’s not just on the pitch, we’re good friends outside of the club.”

Corberan was recently quizzed on the possibility of the pair playing together as a partnership, which the head coach said does not fit the current system

The Spaniard explained: “It depends how you play. If you play with two strikers in a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-2 yes, but it’s true that we are not playing with these two shapes.

“At the same time we are playing with Wallace sometimes as a striker, or with a playmaker alongside Dike, or with Asante. In some moments of the game, the cup for example against Chesterfield, it was the first time that both players played together.

“In the second half of the first round of the cup. In the game against Birmingham in the last minutes, we were playing with Dike and Asante, and then Asante and Grant as two strikers.

“In some moments of the games, rather than starting, this situation can change.”

He added of Thomas-Asante: “Yes, he has played on the right or the left (at Salford), or as a playmaker, but I think he is showing that his main position is as a number nine.”