Club News

Irvine on team and transfer news

Pocognoli

SEBASTIEN Pocognoli (thigh) is a doubt for Saturday’s trip to Swansea (ko 3pm) – as Alan Irvine looks to bring in one more player before the summer transfer window closes on Monday.

The Belgium international missed Tuesday’s Capital One Cup win over Oxford and has not trained today.

Gareth McAuley, James Morrison and Cristian Gamboa will all be part of the travelling squad for the Liberty Stadium encounter after playing a part against the U’s.

While Graham Dorrans and Craig Gardner have shaken off knocks and Victor Anichebe is expected to recover in time from a groin problem.

The game comes too soon for recent signings Georgios Samaras and Silvestre Varela.

And Irvine hopes Joleon Lescott will be in contention against his former club Everton, following the international break.

“Both Samaras and Varela are some distance away but Sami is going to go away with Greece and hopefully get some playing time.

“That would be helpful for us.

“Silvestre wasn’t part of the Porto squad during pre-season because there was a contract dispute.

“They said ‘if you’re not going to be with us and are moving away’ then you won’t be part of our group.

“So he will stay here and we’ll have a chance to work really hard with him. He will do a week of pre-season training and another week where he’ll do partly pre-season and be partly with the group.”

Meanwhile, the Baggies boss is hoping to add another wide player to his ranks - to bring the number of summer recruits to 11.

“We’re looking for another wide player because right from the beginning we identified we had no full-backs or wide players and there has been an awful lot of work done to try to improve that situation,” he said.

“We feel as if one more wide player will complete the balance of the squad.

“We have a few plates spinning at this moment because you’re never sure, and if you pin all your hopes on one player and that goes wrong, where do you turn?

“You’ve got to try to have other options available.

“We have a preferred choice but that might not be the one that happens.

“We will only be bringing in the one.”