Daryl Dike set for next steps as latest West Brom comeback draws in

Yesterday marked eight months since the United States international was carted off in tears at Portman Road, knowing the likelihood was he had ruptured an Achilles tendon having just fought back from the same injury.

Dike, 24, has done so again and is now in the final stages of rehabilitation from a fourth serious injury just shy of his three-year anniversary at The Hawthorns.

Carlos Corberan’s men are almost midway through a fortnight’s break for international action and the breather hands the Baggies a welcome chance to refocus following the three-game week which yielded just a single point.

Dike, though, could be the main beneficiary as he prepares to transfer from training with Richard Beale’s under-21s to regular sessions with the senior group, who returned from a few days off on Wednesday.

“He is now training with a team, but with the under 21s, so his first step to come back...we have been specific,” Corberan explained. “Individual physical work, and then technical and tactical, but when we moved to the collective training drills, the first step the medical staff wanted to do was with the under-21s.

“Then, he has done analytical drills with us, but not game situations. They will come in the international break.”

There is a slim outside chance next week, prior to Corberan’s side returning to action at Championship new-boys Oxford on Saturday week, Dike may have the chance at a few minutes as Albion’s under-21s play at The Hawthorns against Swansea next Thursday.

Albion’s medical and fitness staff, with the experienced Tony Strudwick as director of the former, have plotted that Dike will feature at least once, or possibly twice, for the under-21s before being deemed ready for senior action.

If the Swansea clash comes too soon, the youth outfit are next in action towards the end of the month, against Manchester City on Saturday, October 26 at their Solihull Moors base of the ARMCO Arena.

“Before he plays with us, he will play with the under-21s, one or two games,” added the head coach. “That is the plan we have in mind.

“He is now make game situation drills with the under-21s, analytical drills with the first-team and technical and tactical drills individually. In the international break, before he plays for the under-21s, he must complete collective training with the first team.

“Before he can play with the first team, he must do at least one game with the B team.”

Dike has been around first-team drills for much of the last month as his rehab accelerated ahead of schedule.

The January 2022 recruit, who arrived in a £7million deal from Orlando City in his homeland, has endured rotten fortune with the Baggies.

He spent two extended spells out of the side either side of his first summer at the club with serious muscle injures.

Following that, in April 2023, he ruptured an Achilles in Stoke and, following around eight months of rehab, made a goalscoring return in the FA Cup against Aldershot in early January this year.

Barely more than a month later he was carried off the pitch via a stretcher buggy in tears after the same injury on his opposite side in Suffolk.