West Brom boss Roy Hodgson won't recall Chris Wood from Birmingham

West Brom boss Roy Hodgson today ruled out recalling Chris Wood from his loan at Birmingham despite losing Shane Long to a knee injury for up to six weeks.

The Republic of Ireland international has been ruled out with the bone damage he suffered because of a wild lunge by Alan Hutton in Saturday's 2-1 derby win at Villa.

But, with Somen Tchoyi and Peter Odemwingie set to start in attack against Liverpool on Saturday and Simon Cox, Marc-Antoine Fortune and Roman Bednar in reserve, Hodgson plans to leave Wood with Blues, for whom he has scored nine goals in just eight starts so far.

The head coach said: "We have no plans to bring him back at the moment. We seem to be doing OK without him and I wouldn't want to bring him back just to bolster our squad or make our reserves stronger.

"To bring Chris back now would be the wrong thing to do, because he's getting so much playing time at Birmingham and using it very wisely."