West Brom ace Kyle Bartley in hospital with illness – Steve Bruce
West Brom manager Steve Bruce confirmed that his senior centre-half Kyle Bartley is currently in hospital suffering from an illness.
The 30-year-old was, understandably, not involved in Bruce’s first game as Baggies boss where a Billy Sharp brace earned Sheffield United a 2-0 win at Bramall Lane.
No time frame has been put on when Bartley may return but the boss did confirm it wasn’t a COVID-19 related problem that has kept him bed-ridden.
“Bartley unfortunately at the minute is in hospital,” Bruce said, as quoted by Birmingham World.
“We’re hoping it’s obviously nothing too serious but he’s got some sort of bug – not COVID, we’ve checked for that.
“But he’s got some sort of virus which, we’ll see, we’ll see how he is.
“It’s a concern, of course, but he’s in the right place.
“There was concern enough to get him checked over thoroughly because he had a huge temperature spike yesterday which wasn’t great.”
Last thing needed
As if things weren’t disruptive enough at The Hawthorns at the moment, Bartley’s untimely hospitalisation has done little to settle things down (not that he can do anything about it of course).
The Stockport-born defender would have certainly been involved in some capacity against the Blades had he been available but the late changes to Bruce’s side will have caused unwanted disruption.
The 61-year-old can only hope Bartley is back and at his best as soon as possible to help solidify the side and start to build towards a playoff charge.
The Baggies weren’t helped last night by captain Jake Livermore’s ridiculous sending off in the first half and the new boss will be sure to set the standard of punishment with the skipper.
In other West Brom news, Chris Lepkowski could not believe his eyes as he saw Livermore’s “stupid” red card offence.