West Brom could stage Manchester United friendly ahead of restart

United are among several Premier League clubs to contact the Baggies to enquire about organising warm-up matches prior to the season resuming.

A meeting with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team is now among several options being considered by Albion, with boss Slaven Bilic keen for his promotion-chasing side to play at least two practice games prior to the Championship’s return on the weekend after next.

Preparations stepped up another gear on Saturday with a joint training exercise at rivals Villa, which consisted of a 90-minute match split into thirds, with every member of the squad used.

Albion expect to discover the schedule for their first fixtures back early this week, with the rest of the Championship’s regular campaign set to be squeezed into the space of just four-and-half weeks.

In addition to playing friendly matches, some training sessions will also be moved to The Hawthorns this week with Bilic keen for his players to get used to playing in front of empty stands.

Baggies technical director Luke Dowling explained: “Friendlies will be very important for the players to get a ‘feel’ of what a behind-closed-doors match is like.

“I think back to our last pre-season friendly against Bournemouth when we had six or seven thousand in the stadium and that was a strange atmosphere at times.

“But having no spectators will be a completely different experience and we don’t want the players surprised by it.

“A lot of them get their bearings and feel for a game from the noise inside the stadium and that’s obviously not going to be there for them.

“So we want them to get used to these new playing conditions. We don’t want them surprised by anything. Slaven was very keen from the outset for us to play friendlies so we are working on that.”

Dowling, meanwhile, praised the attitude of the loan stars who will be aiming to help Albion clinch promotion.

The Baggies wasted little time in reaching agreements with the parent clubs of Grady Diangana, Matheus Pereira, Filip Krovinovic and Callum Robinson to ensure the quartet could remain at The Hawthorns past the original June 30 expiry date on their deals.

But the final decision, as Dowling, acknowledged, ultimately rested with the players themselves.

He explained: “I was asking them if they were happy to stay and they looked at me completely ‘gone out’ – as if I was mad! To a man they responded: ‘Are you crazy? Of course we want to stay’.”