ROMAN Bednar will make his comeback from a hamstring injury in tonight's reserves derby clash at Villa (ko 7pm).
The six-goal hitman returned to full training on Thursday following a fortnight on the sidelines.
But Saturday's 3-0 win over Sunderland came too soon for him and he was forced to watch Chris Brunt overtake him as the Baggies' top scorer this term.
Bednar will be hoping to come through the Barclays Premier Reserve League (South) trip to Villa Park unscathed ahead of Saturday's top-flight visit to Tottenham (ko 3pm), who he scored a dramatic late opener against in December's 2-0 Hawthorns win.
"Roman has only trained two days," said Tony Mowbray.
"He's been out for two weeks and had one-and-a-half days training, because Friday is not really a proper training day.
"So, if I'd thrown him in on Saturday and it had gone again he'd be out for another three weeks.
"I'd much prefer him to play an hour to 45 minutes in the reserves tonight and train the rest of the week to put him in contention for Tottenham.
"Hopefully that will be the case."
The Baggies will field a strong second-string against Villa, with on-loan Youssouf Mulumbu continuing to build his fitness.
Other senior players included in Michael Appleton's starting XI are Dean Kiely, Carl Hoefkens, Ryan Donk and Do-heon Kim.
Seventeen-year-old striker Chris Wood also gets another chance to impress.
ALBION: Kiely, Hoefkens, Samuels, Labadie, Donk, Downing, Kim, Mulumbu, Wood, Bednar, Elford-Alliyu. Subs: Allsop (gk), Mantom, Lovell, Brown, Waghorn.
