West Brom striker offers boost for Albion’s finale
Striker Josh Maja has been backed to play a role in Albion's crunch Championship finale against Preston following a match-winning under-21s cameo.
The luckless Baggies frontman struck twice and registered an assist in 80 minutes for Richard Beale's under-21s in Monday's 4-2 success over Leeds.
Maja has suffered two ankle injuries from poor challenges in his debut Albion campaign and featured in two brief cameos for Carlos Corberan's first team since returning to contention early in April.
Corberan was there watching on at The Hawthorns on Monday night as Maja caught the eye with his finishing, combination play and energy – with just days to go before Saturday's Championship finale against Preston, in which Albion need at least a point to claim a play-off place.
"It was great for Josh to get 80 minutes under his belt and good for his confidence to get a couple of goals, hopefully he can help the team for the rest of the season," said boss Beale.
"It was great to have him leading the line, he's had his injury issues and great for him to have a good base tonight, hopefully for it to carry on for the first team.
"First-team players' minutes will often be managed and you speak to the player themselves and get a feel for how they are. If they haven't played too much football it's often worth negating any risk of them getting injuries in the last 10 or 15 minutes, which is often when most of those occur.
"Josh was free to go and we got an indication to bring him off on 80 minutes, which we did."
Maja was an unused substitute in Saturday's disappointing reverse at Sheffield Wednesday but looks set to have given his match sharpness a boost ahead of Preston, who were beaten 3-0 by champions Leicester on Monday night.
"He's a great lad and hopefully that ticks the box for him to get in and around first-team availability, I'm sure it does," added Beale.
"Whenever there's first-team lads dropping down you just want them to do it right and be professional. It's very rare in my career any don't do that but there are one or two. Josh is certainly a really good professional and I'm really pleased for him with two good goals."
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