Daryl Dike gets West Brom injury ‘green light’ as Josh Maja link up is discussedWest Brom striker Daryl Dike is getting closer to make his return after injury hell.
Daryl Dike is set to take another significant step forwards in his painstaking bid to return to action for West Bromwich Albion, boss Carlos Corberan has revealed. Dike’s time since he joined Albion in January 2022 has been largely wrecked by injuries, but in particular the most recent two – suffered at Stoke in April 2023 and then at Ipswich in February of this year – have been cruel setbacks indeed.
Dike had to overcome months of rehabilitation after damaging one Achilles last year before he was struck down with a similar injury to the other back in February, a matter of weeks after making his return. It’s been a similar road to recovery which has required patience and determination. Slowly but surely, Dike is drawing ever closer to being fit and available again.
He has been training with the club’s under 21s recently, in doing so being exposed to game situation drills in a bid to build up his fitness and robustness before he returns to action. The process has been meticulously pulled together, with his previous injuries in mind; Dike would train with the 21s, before joining in first-team training and then eventually partake in a Premier League 2 game for Richard Beale. Then, in time, he’d be available to Corberan again.
The next rung on that ladder is coming, as Corberan confirms.
“Before Dike plays with the under 21s he must train with the first team. He hasn’t done that yet,” he explained. “He must do game situation drills with the first-team. Today [Tuesday] is the last day of him making game situations with the under 21s. We understand that after he completes training with the under 21s, he will have the green light to be introduced to drill games with the first team.
“Dike was an important player who was brought to the club nearly three years ago. I understand there are going to be expectations on him. I am managing calmly his process to come back with the group. He has suffered two important injuries which have meant he has been 16,17,18 months out of the last 24 months.
