By George Overhill

30th Oct, 2023 | 7:04pm

Cedric Kipre recovers and Pipa starts as Brandon Thomas-Asante axed - Confirmed West Brom XI vs Coventry City

Carlos Corberan has made a series of changes to his West Brom starting XI to face Coventry City, with Cedric Kipre winning his fitness battle to start.

It emerged via the manager in his pre-match media duties on Friday (27 October) that scans on the defender’s knee had revealed no serious damage in a “huge boost” to the club after he went off late in the win against Queens Park Rangers with what was feared to be an issue that would keep him out for a significant period.

In addition, rarely seen Ludogorets loanee Pipa, who only has 18 minutes in the Championship under his belt, is also in the line-up at the expense of Darnell Furlong, while Brandon Thomas-Asante is benched in attack as Alex Mowatt comes into the midfield.

Elsewhere Alex Palmer remains in goal, while Kyle Bartley and Erik Pieters are unchanged at the back, as are Okay Yokuslu and Nathaniel Chalobah in midfield.

With Mowatt coming in it looks like Corberan has changed the formation and will be going with a three-man attack of Matt Phillips, Grady Diangana and Jed Wallace.

Competing

While West Brom’s results through October have fluctuated there is momentum to be built with the trip to face a Sky Blues side currently down in 20th place.

The victory over struggling QPR saw them sack manager Gareth Ainsworth and Coventry should be a step up from them, but despite the injury problems at The Hawthorns the Baggies remain in a decent position in the table.

One win outside the play-off places with a game in hand on all the teams above barring Ipswich Town is not to be sniffed at for the end of October after seeing various players leave in the summer.

Corberan has been operating under the pressure of uncertainty off the pitch with a mooted takeover rumbling along in the background, and with increasing numbers of attacking options unavailable.

The manager will especially want to record a strong result in this meeting as he knows there is a bruising sequence of games against teams in the top six to come.

November will be unforgiving with Hull City, Southampton, Ipswich and Cardiff one after another, and while the West Brom boss would likely back his side to take something from each one it is certainly going to be a tall order to string together wins, so three points off a comparatively struggling opponent is the priority first.

In other West Brom news, the club have been tipped to land a significant benefit from a potential timeline for the mooted takeover.