Jeremy Sarmiento is set to miss up to four weeks of action with a quadriceps injury, West Brom boss Carlos Corberan has confirmed.
The on-loan Ecuador winger came off the bench as the Baggies hammered Preston 4-0 at Deepdale on Saturday (30 September) but was a notable absentee for Tuesday’s (3rd October) 1-0 victory over rock-bottom Sheffield Wednesday.
Providing an update on the 21-year-old, in quotes reported by the Express & Star (4 October), Corberan was rueful about the situation, especially with fellow summer signing Josh Maja also on the sidelines.
“The risk with Jeremy to play the game, whenever he is playing more minutes, always there is a risk because he’s a player who hasn’t had the habit to play games. It looked like he was recovering well, from the game against Millwall, and I had him in mind when we were preparing for Preston, but from the muscle perspective he arrived at Preston with half a full recovery,” he said.
“He had some pain in the quadriceps. From our medical department, they understood it was just normal from the fatigue of the game, after it being a long time without playing.
“That’s why I decide not to play with him in the first XI against Preston and I’d have him ready from the bench. He was playing some minutes and at the end of the game, he felt pain in the muscle, in the left quadriceps.
“With this pain, he was receiving treatment on Sunday and when the doctors checked – when the pain was there and didn’t disappear, they made a scan – yesterday, it showed an injury. It is going to keep him apart from the group for four weeks. It’s difficult
“The fact we don’t have Maja or Sarmiento for the next four weeks, the two players who we brought to the club to help the attack, it is difficult to accept,” the head coach said. “The first injury of Maja was an accident, in an action that from the point of view of the referee wasn’t a penalty. We lost him for eight weeks.”
This update is an unfortunate one amid a backdrop of an upturn in positivity at The Hawthorns, with the 1-0 win over Wednesday – which in truth should have been a significantly more comfortable result in a game the Baggies dominated – leaving them fifth in the table.
Sarmiento’s start to life at The Hawthorns has been a little stop-start, with Corberan managing his minutes after a spell on the sidelines towards the end of last season, and now we have already seen why he has been so cautious with his summer signing.
It is disappointing for the Baggies, who are already working with a small squad and are already devoid of the services of striker Josh Maja, meaning there is a lot of onus on the likes of Brandon Thomas-Asante and Grady Diangana to provide the attacking impetus in the next month.
There is obviously no need at all to panic, with the Baggies now unbeaten in their past five league matches, but Corberan can ill-afford to lose too many more players from his squad in the coming weeks.