Albion's Silverstre Varela may require surgery
West Brom winger Silvestre Varela might face exploratory surgery on a troublesome groin problem that will keep him out of Saturday's trip to Liverpool.
Albion have opened talks with Porto – the wideman's parent club – to decide whether the 29-year-old should have an operation to determine the extent of the injury.
Varela will miss the visit to Anfield along with Victor Anichebe (groin) and Brown Ideye (ankle).
Head coach Alan Irvine said: "He has got a groin problem which we are assessing at the moment and we are talking to Porto about that as well.
"It's difficult for me to say exactly where he is at this time.
"He is their player, anything involving medical assessment of a player who isn't your player it is common courtesy to talk to the parent club.
"We certainly can't do anything that is too invasive in terms of assessing him without their permission.
"We may be at the stage at the moment where we are not quite sure whether needs a small operation or not.
"We are assessing that, the first step in that process is to see how they feel about it and also to get background information from them about the particular problem.
The Frenchman hasn't made an appearance for Albion since his summer loan move from Portuguese club FC Porto.
Irvine added: "This isn't a new problem, it is something he had before and something he was managing when he was at Porto.
"The medical teams are talking and we will find the outcome of those conversations.
"We were aware when we did the medical that he had had a groin problem in the past. But it is not uncommon for players, you hear about players having hernia operations and having hernia type issues which used to be called groin injuries.
"He has had some problems before, when you do a medical of a player of that age who has played that many games the chances of it being completely clear are very, very slim.
"Everybody is carrying something, everybody has got a weakness somewhere, whether that's groins, knees, ankles, hips. You can't play that many games without having some kind of issue.
"It was not seen as something we had to worry about, unfortunately he has had a little problem there. He could have had it whether he'd had previous problems or not.
"It's nothing major, but something we need to investigate."