Kyle Bartley ruled out for West Brom v Leicester with fresh hamstring injury
Kyle Bartley will miss West Brom versus Leicester on Saturday afternoon due to a “minor hamstring injury”, according to Birmingham Mail journalist Joe Chapman.
Writing via his personal X account on Saturday morning (2 December), Chapman reported that while Bartley, 32, will miss the Championship clash with Leicester at The Hawthorns, he should be well enough to play against Sunderland next weekend.
Bartley is replaced by Semi Ajayi in West Brom’s starting line-up with Jed Wallace and John Swift also missing out. Wallace is also injured while Swift is on the bench.
As well as Ajayi, Matt Phillips and Brandon Thomas-Asante have also returned to Carlos Corberan’s XI.
Not to worry
As long as it’s not a serious injury for Bartley, this isn’t the worst of blows.
West Brom are starting to show that they have a bit of strength in depth with players returning from injuries because even though there have been a few changes made to the team that beat Cardiff on Tuesday, you still have players like Swift, Jayson Molumby, Nathaniel Chalobah and Josh Maja on the bench to come on when needed.
Hopefully Bartley is back against Sunderland and there are no more injuries suffered in the coming hours against Leicester but it is a very, very cold day in the Black Country and that could lead to an increase in injury risk.
Bartley’s always been a fairly injury prone player so it’s likely that the weather may have affected him in the build-up to this game but one silver lining, pointed out on Twitter, is that at least he won’t be banned for the Sunderland game now.
Bartley’s walking a suspension tightrope with four bookings in 14 Championship appearances this season.
He picked up his most recent one away at Cardiff in the week so that’s one less worry against Leicester.
In other West Brom news, the doomsday clock doesn’t care for Albion’s Championship form as it ticks down towards a deadline.