Carlos Corberan: West Brom starlets will be given a chance
Carlos Corberan has vowed to give Albion’s kids a chance during pre-season.
The Baggies boss plans to run the rule over several members of the under-21 squad to see whether they are ready to play step up to the senior set-up in the upcoming Championship campaign.
Corberan admits that with the playing budget getting tighter, the club’s academy will play an increasingly important role. It was yesterday confirmed Albion’s academy had retained category one status.
Corberan said: “We have some talents in the academy who I will be forcing to be part of our pre-season matches with the senior team.
“In the new challenge and situation for the club, the academy has to have an important part to play. The academy players can be the future of the club. Players who have previously been in the under-21 team can be part of the first team in pre-season and it’s up to them to show us that they are ready.
“Maybe we can find a player from the academy who can help the club cover one position instead of having to go to the market.”
Corberan is keen to make signings sooner rather than later to allow as much time as possible to work in pre-season. But the boss knows the Baggies, who will be chiefly targeting free agent and loan signings, are to a large extent at the mercy of the market.
He said: “As a coach, it’s always nice to have the new players added as quickly as possible, but I also understand that we can’t control the timings of the market.
“We need to have some flexibility about what we would like because I would like to the spend the next six weeks with the squad that we are going to have for the full season, but we know that this is not easy.”
Corberan continued: “I have spent a lot of time organising the (pre-season) schedule. In the summer, you’ll always have new ideas that you want to implement throughout the campaign and I’ve been organising how we do that.
“It’s important to have plenty of communication with the staff about what the new ideas are and how we are going to modify things.
“We are going to be organised for the season ahead and we’ll be communicating our ideas to the players on the training pitches and in the analysis room.”
