'Shown real promise': Eric Ramsay reveals Ollie Bostock and Harry Whitwell January loan decision after duo remained at West Brom

Whitwell's exploits this season have been away from The Hawthorns, during a loan spell with Forest Green Rovers before being recalled by Albion in January.

It was expected that they would both head off on loan in the winter window - but that isn't the case and both have been named as substitutes in recent games.

Boss Eric Ramsay has explained that in an ideal world they would have gone out on loan, but they can benefit just as much from being around the Albion squad.

He said: "In both of those cases they are promising players.

"I'm sure they are players who would benefit from more games under their belt in a real competitive environment where they can be central to a group and feel a lot of minutes in situations that are really high tension.

"But we've also got to make sure we have a squad of a certain size and we have enough depth.

"Those guys have shown real promise and they can feel they've made some steps forward irrespective of being out on loan or not."

Albion haven't had a big squad of depth all season and it has been getting even smaller in recent weeks as injuries began to bite - and players departed in January.

Chris Mepham was the latest to be ruled out with a hamstring injury on Saturday - which came after both George Campbell and Krystian Bielik picked up injuries in the recent draw with Derby.

While Tammer Bany is still on the sidelines, Samuel Iling-Junior was recalled by Aston Villa in January to be sent out on loan to Serie A.

That meant on Saturday that players such as Daryl Dike and Jed Wallace, who have not featured much from the start this season - were named in the line-up.

Ramsay commended Dike for the performance in his first start since the final day of last season - and is keen to see him pick up more match sharpness during the Championship run in.

He added: "We're in a tricky position in that sense with a number of players where maybe if this is a final and you're picking the team to win this individual game you don't necessarily make the decisions that you make.

"We've got 15 games to go and we want to make sure that we have an element of a squad and we've got players that have got minutes.

"I think Daryl, given the circumstances, fared well on Saturday. He's a player that I think you can rely on to do what he did. He's obviously very difficult to play against.

"He's a real team player. He gives everything and it was a really good 60 minutes. But if you're picking an ideal team, you pick a team with more rhythm and more match fitness.

"But I think where Jed (Wallace) didn't have any, where Daryl didn't have any, where Jamal (Jimoh-Aloba) didn't have any, they gave us a lot today and that was really important."