West Brom's Adam Reach out for four months after surgery

The 30-year-old has not played competitively since April 1 against Millwall, after which it was revealed the muscle injury would end his season prematurely.

It was determined that the former Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday man would not require an operation, but that option came with a risk of re-injury.

And Reach, who had been on target during behind-closed-doors friendlies this summer, was substituted off in the friendly at Burton after pulling up a couple of weekends ago. He will go under the knife and not be available until later in the calendar year.

“Reach suffered one important injury last year," explained head coach Carlos Corberan. "With the injury you have two possibilities, make a surgery or a more conservative treatment without the surgery.

“The difference is about how much the tendon is affected, our medical staff understood the tendon wasn’t damaged enough to proceed with surgery and have treatment of some months.

“Unfortunately in football 50 per cent of injuries that damage the muscle and don’t have surgery you have a risk to have the injury again and unfortunately this is exactly what happened with Reach. As soon as you have the same injury the second time you need to proceed with surgery.

“Last year we had two cases with the same injury, Phillips and Reach, Phillips was managed with surgery because of the clear affect to the tendon.

“We’ve suffered the consequence of the injury again. Now he is going to have surgery and in the next four months we are not going to watch him in the team."

Midfielder Jayson Molumby was left out of last Saturday's 4-3 friendly as a precaution due to some pain felt behind the knee in training.

Corberan felt he made the right decision by not risking the Republic of Ireland international in his side's final pre-season fixture, due to the concern a full-blooded player like the midfielder might aggravate the problem just a week before the Championship kick-off at Blackburn.

“He (Molumby) is totally different, he is feeling a little bit tight in the back of the knee," Corberan added. "There is no injury but there is no risk when you don’t involve the player. Right now I think it’s important to not take the risk.

“He has been training individually with the fitness coaches without the risk of the game, especially Molumby is going to play on the pitch with all his emotion, we made the right decision.”