West Brom ponder a loan move for striker Cheikh Diaby

The forward joined the Baggies in October 2019 after being released by the acclaimed Le Havre academy.

But his time at Albion has been heavily disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Diaby went back home to France when it looked likely the country would be heading into its first lockdown.

And while he returned when all the academy sides were given the green light to resume training – he missed the first two weeks because of quarantine rules.

Now, though, the 20-year-old is fit and playing well for the Albion under-21 side led by Deon Burton and James Morrison.

Albion already have fellow forwards Callum Morton and Jamie Soule (both Lincoln) as well as Owen Windsor (Grimsby) out on loan gaining crucial experience in the Football League.

And Stevens revealed Diaby could be the next striker to go out in search of first-team football.

“Cheikh took a couple of months to get up to speed because he’d missed a couple of months of football,”the academy chief explained.

“We were just getting him to what we thought was his fighting best, and then lockdown happened.

“He was one of the first ones we had to send home, we had a minute to make a decision to get them on planes and trains to get them home, because we knew what was coming.

“Cheikh was one of the last to come back in, because of the restrictions in France and the two-week quarantine here.

“He’s just catching up now. He missed pre-season because of those restrictions.

“He’s a powerful boy, he’s going to score goals, he’s going to give defences a problem because of his physicality.

“He’s got plenty to develop but he’s an interesting one. He could maybe do with a loan, maybe after Christmas, because he could do with getting some exposure somewhere.

“We’ll see where he is at the end of that.”

Alongside Morton, Soule and Windsor, Albion have also sent Rayhaan Tulloch, Alex Palmer, Josh Griffiths, Finn Azaz and Saul Shotton out on loan this year.

Tulloch is playing under former boss Darren Moore at Doncaster. Palmer is also at Lincoln.

Griffiths and Azaz are at Cheltenham while Shotton is with Woking.