Striker Daryl Dike is set for a return to Albion contention by the end of November, boss Carlos Corberan has confirmed.
The luckless Baggies frontman has not featured since 2-2 draw at Ipswich on February 10 last season, where he snapped his Achilles tendon.
It was the opposite Achilles to the one he injured the previous April at Stoke, but Dike has endured in excess of two years on the sidelines during his near-three years at The Hawthorns.
The United States international, 24, took part in team training last Friday for the first time, but still has a five-to-six week road ahead before he completes the necessary steps to return to contention.
It has been almost nine months since those desperate scenes at Portman Road in which an inconsolable Daryl Dike left the pitch on the back of a golf buggy. Nothing had been diagnosed at that stage, but clearly the striker knew himself that *another* lengthy lay-off was on the horizon. Dike had already fought back from three serious West Bromwich Albion injuries in his two years at the club, and now a familiar journey lay ahead.
Dike only turned 24 this summer but has been robbed of huge chunks of the time in which he has been able to call himself an Albion player. After making his debut under Valerien Ismael, Dike – who scored seven goals in the space of 17 games in 2022-23, including 12 starts – has made separate injury comebacks under Steve Bruce and Carlos Corberan, but this most recent one has proven to be perhaps the most galling for all concerned.
The tearful US forward couldn’t control his emotions on that fateful day at Ipswich. So much work had been done by himself and the club’s staff in order to ensure he returned to this environment. The goal against Aldershot was met with relief and served as a reminder for the striker as to what it feels like to put the ball in the net. All of those hours at the training ground, in rehabilitation, only to end up back at square one.
We’re now into September. Dike’s latest return to the first-team is anticipated by all. What a weapon he’d be to arrive into the equation, adding to a formula which is already proving to be match-winning and extracting the very best from Josh Maja, after his own injury problems. The idea that Corberan could rotate the pair, or operate with the two, is a mouth-watering prospect. Thankfully, that very prospect could materalise in the coming weeks.
