West Brom striker 'will be stronger' after small setback

Striker Dike, 24, has not played since February after Achilles surgery and tweaked his hamstring during a first day of full training on Thursday.

The head coach explained that, while the minor blow disappointed luckless Dike, muscle twinges on the way back from lengthy absences are common and can help his body grow stronger.

Corberan, whose side welcome Cardiff today, said: “Before we could make the decision about when, we had to see the reaction to the demands of training.

“If these setbacks needed to happen then for me the faster the better. Because it gives more time. I know how difficult it is for someone like him, mentally, to think you are ready and then to have one step back.

“That’s why it is important to tell you that this setback will happen, because in this process after you fix the injury your body changes. When you have an Achilles and you move a piece of another part to put in the Achilles, always a body adaptation has to happen.

“In this type of adaptation you won’t suffer walking, or making normal things, you will suffer when playing football, when you start to challenge your body. Sometimes the injury is part of your body being ready to compete. Sometimes the setbacks are a natural process your body finds to be ready to compete.

“That’s the way I see this. You can go to negative or positive perspective, for me it is more positive than negative, his body needed to have this adaptation, we don’t know how long it can take, but it will fix and he will be more ready to adapt.

“I am full of confidence that Dike is going to be ready to help us this year. Let’s see when his body shows that he is there.”

Corberan spoke with the United States international frontman after he felt the muscle issue in a bid to quash his disappointment and to stress that Albion’s coaches and medical staff expected the possibility of minor setbacks on the striker’s return from a second Achilles rupture.

“Of course I was talking to him for a long time on Thursday,” added the head coach. “When you are a player you cannot feel what I feel as a coach, or what the doctors know.

“When you are a player you see this as something negative. You don’t see it as part of the process. That’s why giving a timing to these injuries is difficult and creates false expectations. At the end when a player is training, feeling fit and well, is when he is ready.

“But then appear a difficulty. This is life and football. This is life in football. This is a difficulty to beat to be in a better place.”

Elsewhere, Albion are in talks with a knee specialist to determine the best treatment for influential defender Kyle Bartley.

Bartley, 33, is a key regular for Corberan but missed out at Blackburn on Wednesday and is not involved against Cardiff today with inflammation in his knee on an existing long-term issue being managed.

The head coach explained that the currently swelling appeared after a blow to the knee against Oxford last Saturday as opposed to a heavy workload, which usually causes the problem.

Talks with the medical expert will determine if the club’s same management of rest and injections will be suitable to continue.

“His inflammation appeared after contact, it showed something we didn’t expect,” Corberan said. “He has had conservative treatment in the last year to be fine. Sometimes in games in the week he rested for this reason, sometimes the body reacts with inflammation for the load.

“Now it was not the load, it was contact, that created the inflammation. So it is important to see from the specialists’ perspective that if the inflammation appeared from the contact, not from the load, we can manage it in the same way, by resting and an injection.

“We will see if we follow the same treatment or if it’s something more serious that demands a different treatment.”