West Brom star set for scan as Carlos Corberan assesses Blues absentees
Albion captain Jed Wallace is set for a scan on a muscle injury that ruled the winger out of Saturday's 4-1 defeat at Blues.
The wideman, 30, could be a doubt for his side's Championship kick off at Queens Park Rangers next weekend due to calf discomfort.
Wallace has struggled with discomfort earlier this pre-season and missed one behind-closed-doors friendly with adductor pain.
The skipper was Carlos Corberan's most notable absentee for the heavy defeat at St Andrew's against the newly-relegated League One hosts and the head coach provided an update on the winger, as well as absent new recruits Paddy McNair and Devante Cole, Albion's two most recent signings, who were uninvolved.
“Wallace had a problem at the beginning of pre-season in the adductor that didn’t allow him to make the normal programme," Corberan revealed.
"Then, two days ago he felt a pain in the calf. He’s going to have a scan and we will know the result of the scan in the next days."
The head coach added: “We bring in this week Cole to the club. He’s a player who didn’t make pre-season because he was free in the market after Barnsley, he didn’t have a club. He’s started pre-season four weeks later than the group, that’s why he couldn’t play minutes today.
“McNair that is something a little bit similar. He arrived at the club before but he has a small pain in the knee that doesn’t allow him to train regularly. He couldn’t train in the last two days, that’s why he couldn’t have the first minutes today.
“The other player injured was Grady Diangana. He arrived to the club after he was in the international break and he had an injury in the calf. With this injury, the first day he tried to see how he felt and he then felt more pain than before. The scan showed he had an injury that moves him out of the group for six-to-eight weeks.”
Albion were beaten convincingly by Chris Davies' hosts, who have spent ambitiously under new ownership this summer in a bid to make an immediate return to the second tier.
The visitors were level at 1-1 in front of a crowd of almost 8,500 – including a strong away following from Baggies keen for a first glimpse of the summer – but a late collapse saw Blues capitalise. Kyle Bartley netted a first-half equaliser for Corberan's side, whose bench was full of youth players, highlighting the threadbare squad available to the Spaniard.
“Today has been the closest game we’ve played so far to the real competition, even with the fact we were playing with a team one division below us in League One," Corberan said.
"Every single game we are going to play from next week is going to be stronger, because we didn’t compete with a team that isn’t in our league. When you achieve a result like that one with seven days until the start of the competition, it tells you the team needs to grow a lot to compete in the Championship.
“In the friendlies you probably don’t analyse the results in the details and consequences of the goals. We were competing but it’s through the physicality we dropped a level. Probably a few minutes before the goal, we started to drop. After we dropped and conceded, emotionally and physically we couldn’t face the game at the level in the way we need to face to avoid a result like that one.”
