Ryan Mason has offered an update regarding the fitness of several members of his first-team squad.
The boss spoke specifically about club captain Jed Wallace, midfielders Alex Mowatt and Jayson Molumby and defender Krystian Bielik, who limped off during the first half of the Baggies’ 1-0 defeat at Hull on Saturday.
Mason was in front of the media on Tuesday morning at the The Fitlife Foods Performance Centre and told journalists and radio reporters: “We’re still assessing Krystian Bielik.
“He’s going for a scan on Tuesday. He won’t be available for the Bristol City game.
“We’re still assessing Alex Mowatt. He’s still not trained with the group yet. Hopefully he can progress, but it’s a pain management thing and at the moment he’s not quite there.
“He’s played a lot of football this season, so when he feels ok it won’t be a case of having to build him back up. That’s a positive. Hopefully he can turn a corner.
“There’s still something there with Jayson Molumby. We’re assessing him too to see where he’s at.
“We feel like we haven’t had Jed Wallace all season to be honest. When you’ve got a thin squad and then don’t have a couple of players available, it puts more stress on others. He’s not with the group yet.
“It’s a challenge for any kind of group to deal with. You want robust teams and robust players. Every game in this division is so demanding and that’s the challenge for us.
“We are quite thin at the minute, but we can’t have any excuses. We’ve got a busy period coming up and we need to be ready.”
Albion welcome Bristol City to The Hawthorns on Boxing Day – one of four matches they’ll play in the space of 11 days over the festive period.
Mason says Christmas is a “special” time of year and insists the group view this spell as a huge opportunity to bag themselves a number of positive results.
“We understand Christmas is a very special time of year. It’s special in England that we get to play over Christmas.
“Hopefully we can give our fans the energy on Boxing Day and give them a good feeling when we play Bristol City.
“Every game is a huge opportunity. We’ve got four games in 11 days. That’s plenty of chances to improve our form and try and climb up the table. There are 12 points up for grabs and we want as many as possible.
“We feel the pain of defeats and we want to attack Friday’s game and deliver a positive reaction to the setback we suffered at Hull City.
“It’s at our stadium where we’ve picked up some good results recently, winning three of the last four. We’ve got back-to-back home matches coming up straight after Christmas and we want nothing more than to make our fans happy and give them plenty to cheer about, especially at this time of year.”
