Slaven Bilic confirms Tom Cleverly blow for Watford ahead of West Brom clash
Watford have been hit with a fresh blow ahead of their Championship fixture against West Brom on Saturday afternoon at Vicarage Road.
Tom Cleverly is likely to be out for two months after sustaining an injury in the warm-up prior to The Hornets’ draw against league leaders Burnley (Watford Observer, 17 February).
However, Slaven Bilic has confirmed Ken Sema and Imran Louza are now both fit and ready for the visit of Albion on Saturday (18 February).
“He [Cleverly] felt a pop in his thigh in the warm-up on Tuesday and although it’s not a major injury that requires surgery, it’s also not something he’ll be back from in a couple of weeks,” said the former West Brom boss.
“I’m treating Ken now as a fit player. He has a green tick by his name. There are no question marks. The reason we took him off on Tuesday was because he couldn’t at that point manage the full 90 minutes.
“The plan with Imran has been for him to start the game against West Brom. For him to do that, we needed him to break the ice and play some minutes against Blackburn, and then some more minutes against Burnley.
“He’s done that and now we will see how he reacts in the next couple of days in training after playing in those two games.”
Every point matters
West Brom are now in the middle of a run game against fellow playoff and promotion contenders and they simply have to start putting some wins on the board after a recent drop in form.
The decline hasn’t been drastic, but due to the number of teams who are hunting down the playoff places any slight fall-off in performance will be punished.
Watford are occupying sixth position but will be leapfrogged by Albion if Carlos Corberan’s side can pick up all three points. The Baggies also have a game in hand on their hosts, which would make a win even more important.
Corberan looks set to stick with Josh Griffiths in goal after the 21-year-old made his debut against Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday evening. He was slightly at fault for Rovers’ equaliser and will be under the microscope once again against Bilic’s men.
With David Button being pulled out of the firing line and Alex Palmer injured, the West Brom boss certainly has a dilemma on his hands when it comes to the goalkeeping situation.
In other West Brom news, a talkSPORT pundit has branded the situation at the Hawthorns tragic.