Hull v West Brom: A trip sure to stir up some emotion but Ryan Mason will be focused on strictly business

Hull's MKM Stadium was not the scene of Mason's horrific fractured skull, which occurred in an innocuous incident with Gary Cahill at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge in January 2017, but returning to the Tigers will likely rekindle some memories with the Baggies boss.

Mason confirmed his retirement from playing the following February having said he gave it everything he could to return as a player, but had to put his safety first following advice from world-leading neurosurgeons.

The former England midfielder spoke at the time of his gratitude to the Humberside club, where he was a club-record £10million signing barely six months earlier, for their support and aftercare in the wake of the terrifying ordeal, where he underwent life-saving surgery in London.

He spent time back in and around Hull's training ground and stadium, did light pre-season training that summer while awaiting a second CT scan, but ultimately had to make the tough call and soon turned to coaching.

Perhaps a return to Stamford Bridge - Mason's dad is a Chelsea fan and his parents were present that day - would be a different ordeal, but Mason experienced that several times while involved with Tottenham's management staff in recent years.

This time, at Hull on Saturday in the Championship, it will be strictly business for the Albion boss who has work on his hands to address his side's run of seven straight away defeats.

The club last lost eight away league games on the spin in the 2008/09 Premier League campaign - a run ironically ended with a 2-2 draw at Hull.

The Baggies at least head into this clash off the back of last Friday's 2-0 home success over Sheffield United. Supporters, though, will be wary of yet another false dawn with Albion painfully unable to build on a positive result this season.

Successive wins has only been achieved once, between the first two league games of the campaign in mid-August.

The success against the Blades did come with a welcome shutout, just a second clean sheet in 13 games for Mason's side. Performances have been littered by ghastly individual errors of late and many have led to gift-wrapped opposition goals.

Mason was encouraged after the victory, he said: "We played a good game. I thought we played a really mature game. And that's something we need to learn from.

"We need to grow and understand that there's periods in games where it isn't necessarily always going to be pretty. You have to do the ugly things. You have to value the ugly things.

"And when we get our moments, we'll get our spells to make them count and I thought we did that."

Mason is set to deliver an update in Friday morning's press conference on the availability of his vice-captain Alex Mowatt, who missed the Blades clash with a foot injury and joined fellow midfielder Toby Collyer in the treatment room.