West Brom boss Steve Clarke faces an injury headache in the full-back positions ahead of Sunday’s derby clash with Aston Villa after Liam Ridgewell limped off with a calf problem in last night’s 2-1 Capital One Cup defeat by Liverpool.
The Baggies boss was already without regular right-back Steven Reid (hamstring) and new signing Goran Popov (groin) due to injury heading into the third-round tie. And when Ridgewell came off in the 22nd minute he was forced to reshuffle his backline by bringing centre-half Craig Dawson on at right-back and switching Billy Jones to the opposite side.
Clarke is now keeping his fingers crossed for a fitness boost from his injured defensive trio to improve his options for the Villa Park date. He told West Bromwich Albion’s official website:
“I’ve not had an in-depth analysis of Liam’s injury, he felt something on his calf and he went off. That left us a little bit short in the full-back areas because Reid and Popov were out. The full-back areas are a concern for the weekend. We’ll assess what we’ve got tomorrow and if I can get one or two from the treatment room onto the training pitch I’ll do that. If not, we’ll just deal with it. It would be a blow to lose Liam because he’s played every game for us and he’s one of the steady players in the team.”
