Albion winger Varela set for action behind closed doors

Winger Silvestre Varela could be fit to make his Premier League debut at Chelsea this month with Albion lining up a private friendly for the Portuguese winger next week. more

Baggies boss Alan Irvine hopes to arrange a behind-closed-doors game for the 29-year-old during the international break – and defender Jonas Olsson is also back in full training after an Achilles problem.

Head coach Alan Irvine said: "Absolutely everybody trained yesterday including Jonas, who had been the last one, so we're really pleased about that.

"I don't know if it's happened before, where we've had every single player out there, so the good news is there's no news!

"Sebastien Pocognoli cramped up at the end at Leicester on Saturday when we were throwing ourselves in front of everything but he's fine."

Varela returned to training last week after surgery on a groin problem while Olsson, who has been out of the first-team picture recently, was back for the first time yesterday.

But both players are set to miss Sunday's Premier League game at home to Newcastle as they target a return to full fitness.

Irvine said: "Silvestre's going to need some playing time and we're looking at arranging something behind closed doors next week just to give players who will be here a top-up and Silvestre will be one of them.

"There's no way he will be right for the Newcastle game but we will look at the international break as an opportunity to get some work into the likes of Silvestre, Georgios Samaras, who has not been able to do some extra work in prior international breaks because he's been away with Greece and a few of them, who we will look to top up.

"Jonas has only just come back so he's definitely not available for Sunday.

"We need to monitor him over the next two training sessions to see how he is."