Preston v West Brom preview: Baggies man proves himself as visitors hunt improved form

Bartley defied medical recommendation of playing a maximum of 20 minutes as a late substitute at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday night and instead was called in as a late starting XI replacement for Ousmane Diakite and played the first half.

The experienced centre-back had missed around six weeks of football after minor surgery on a long-standing knee issue but had barely completed two training sessions prior to the trip north east. Corberan had gaps all over his defence - with the ever-present Darnell Furlong suspended - and Bartley was only ruled to play a bit-part cameo.

But Bartley showed little sign of ring-rust as he partnered Torbjorn Heggem in an excellent defensive performance from the Baggies, who claimed an impressive point in another 0-0 draw given their shortcomings at the back.

Head coach Corberan withdrew the defender at the interval, for midfielder Uros Racic who dropped into the backline, and now the hope is Bartley can be ready to play a bigger part at lowly Preston on Saturday.

"He has proved himself a lot to play 45 minutes," said Corberan, whose side drew for an eighth time in nine games. "He completed one training-and-a-half from six weeks out after Oxford.

"One training-and-a-half with the team is nothing, but I think in football - when you make a career (like Bartley's) nobody gives it to you as a present. What you achieve is because you have the mentality to achieve and I like a lot the mentality of Bartley today.

"He showed why he is one of the captains of the team today."

Prior to on-loan midfielder Racic playing an unnatural role for what Corberan described as "the first time in his career" in the second half, another midfielder - Diakite - was poised to start in a back five from the off.

Albion had been preparing for that prospect in training and Diakite played there in the final stages in Hull a few weeks ago to see out a win. But the Malian summer signing felt discomfort in his knee ahead of kick-off in Wearside, as a result of a training ground kick a week ago, and had to miss out.

Corberan is set to confirm at his pre-match press conference on Friday whether Diakite has recovered.

"Seven or 10 days ago Diakite suffered a kick in training in the knee. He was managing it well in this time," said the head coach.

"He completed training yesterday well. Two days ago he felt a little bit of pain, for precaution we stopped and it didn't look serious. He trained fine yesterday, he said he was ready to compete but in the warm-up he felt the pain he didn't have yesterday.

"In these circumstances we needed to adapt to find solutions."

Mercifully for Corberan and Albion, right-back Furlong returns from a one-match ban for the trip to Deepdale and the visitors will have Furlong, Mason Holgate and Heggem at their disposal.

Preston, under Paul Heckingbottom who was appointed in August, are down in 19th after a winless run of eight games.

Less clear is the fitness of Grady Diangana. The attacker missed the last two games with pain in his calf but a scan revealed no notable injury.

Corberan said: "The scan we did on him it looks like it was not an important injury, so there is no injury in the calf, there was pain but no injury. Let's see if the next days if he is ready to be helping the squad."