West Brom injury crisis deepens as Nathaniel Chalobah sent for scan

Albion continue to lose players to injuries, particularly in midfield, in the business end of the campaign and Chalobah's season now hangs in the balance after the former Fulham man limped off five minutes before half-time.

He twisted his ankle landing earlier in the first half at Bloomfield Road and tried to continue but was later unable to continue and limped off. The January free transfer signing had started the game well and was a driving force in Carlos Corberan's midfield.

His setback was the only blot on Albion's copybook in a memorable win at the Seasiders, with Brandon Thomas-Asante and Taylor Gardner-Hickman on target either side of half-time as Corberan's side climbed up to sixth and back in the play-off places for the first time since early February.

"Unfortunately an injury again," Corberan said about losing Chalobah on top of recent injuries for midfield colleagues Okay Yokuslu, Jayson Molumby, Gardner-Hickman and Jake Livermore in recent weeks.

"It was another injury which happened by accident in the game. Today, for me, I was watching a Chalobah who was very sharp, with one level of agility in his action to impact the game. I was enjoying watching him.

"Unfortunately we lost him and it doesn't look like an easy injury. It's going to be another important one. That's why now it makes even more important the recovery of Okay, because we know for us to play with a positional midfielder is key, but I have to give Gardner a lot of credit - today (after Chalobah substitution) Molumby played more as the positional midfielder and Gardner was having more freedom.

"The mental and physical challenge for the rest of the season increases a lot because we know that the next games we aren't going to have a lot of time to recover for and we are not going to recover many players.

"Ankle (injury), he was jumping, and when he touched the ground - not like Dike, whose was the Achilles - it looks like the ligament of the ankle. We don't know how serious it is, on Wednesday we're going to have a scan and we'll know more, but it's going to be difficult."

Second-bottom Blackpool look set for relegation back to League One but were bright this evening and troubled Albion particularly in the first half, where Alex Palmer was busy with at least one top save.

Corberan was pleased with the way his team reacted to early difficulty and found a maturity and control within the contest.

"Every game is very demanding, you play against teams that have to survive and of course they play with a lot of desire, especially at home," Corberan added.

"But for us it was very important to commit with the game and show one level of maturity that we showed. We faced difficulties again with the injury of Chalobah, we had to adapt to the game, we started suffering a little, they were aggressive in the pressing and aggressive in how they were attacking.

"We tried to press them, they went to the sides and made some deliveries that created a clear chance.

"In attack we didn't find a way to dominate better, but it's true we were clinical with the set-piece goal we scored and after as the minutes passed we started to understand the key to the game was to press less and press better when we do.

"We tried to press every single ball at the start and arrived late, they found a way to unbalance our structure, as the minutes passed we were less aggressive, more solid and in the beginning of the second half we started to dominate more and were more calm, to find a better way to control, even if we didn't create chances we started to control and used transitions to create.

"The players played the second half with a lot of maturity."