West Brom winger Oliver Burke not in Alan Pardew's starting plans yet

Burke has endured an injury-hit start to his Albion career since his move from German club RB Leipzig and is yet to start a game for the Baggies.

Pardew has a history of getting wingers to perform for him, and will welcome Wilfried Zaha to The Hawthorns this weekend knowing he played a huge part in getting the Crystal Palace star's career.

However, Albion's new boss doesn't focus on wingers for the sake of it, and he believes Burke is still some way off top level.

"He is the sort of player I should do well with and somebody I will look at closely," said Pardew. "I remember a few games at Nottingham Forest where he got major headlines and everybody was talking about him.

"And then suddenly he went to Germany - I haven’t got to the bottom of that story yet. I’m sure I will as we go along.

"He is now here. He looks a little bit like he needs games, needs some time on the training ground. That’s what he looks like.

"And then hopefully he can come to the first team and do some damage. Certainly he has got the talent to do it, it is just about getting it right in his head.

"Sometimes players need confidence from the manager, the set up, and what his job is. I haven’t really had enough time to do that with him because we are concentrating on the starting XI."

Burke is likely to be on the bench this weekend for Palace's visit to The Hawthorns, but Albion will be keeping a keen eye on Zaha, who praised Pardew's impact on his career in the build-up to the game.

“He made me challenge myself more," said Zaha. "Before, no matter what happened I would still be on the pitch.

"He gave me a reality check, where if I was not having the best game he would take me off at half-time. And once I am off, what can I do?

“It made me think about my game and what I need to do better as a Premier League winger. And I have tried to do that. It will be nice to see him again.

"“He took the club to that next step. With the players we have, we can control the game more now.

"We owe that to him [Pardew]. He made us more of a passing team — not just we know we are going to get dominated and one break we score. He did that for the team.”

Pardew has a reputation for playing and developing wingers but he thinks it's exaggerated by two outstanding players he had at Palace.

The 56-year-old says the key is to adapt your line-up and formation to the group of players at your disposal.

“When I was at Newcastle I rarely played with wingers," he said. "I didn’t play with wing backs by the way but I rarely played with wingers.

"At Crystal Palace it would have been hard not to with Zaha and (Yannick) Bolasie. I don’t think wingers is what I’m about. I’m about what group I’ve got and what can I get the best from them.

"At Newcastle there was many times when I played one of our strikers in a wide area and that worked really well for us. (Papiss) Cisse played left midfield and so did Demba Ba for a period and we had some great results.

"It depends on the make up of the group. Jay Rodriguez? All the players who are fit are in my thinking because I haven’t got many to choose from and he’s certainly up there."