Karlan Grant expresses gratitude to West Brom boss Carlos Corberan

Attacker Grant returned from a loan at fellow Championship side Cardiff last season and has been a regular in a ‘left forward’ role, as he describes it, this term.

The 27-year-old, a £15million buy from Huddersfield in 2020, credited the head coach for how he has been managed.

“Carlos is a proper manager, we didn’t have many discussions at the beginning of pre-season,” Grant said. “We had a small squad, it was a matter of everyone getting fit and keeping your head down – that is what I wanted to do.

“I got my head down and did well in pre-season, I was up there fitness-wise, I looked after myself.

“At the beginning of the season, maybe it worked in my favour, we’d had a few injuries and I haven’t looked back since then.

“He’s been positive with me. Because I left (on loan) last season, it wasn’t a matter of ‘I don’t want you here’. I think everyone gets a fresh start with the manager which is a good thing that you don’t always see. He’s given me an opportunity for it and I’m just grateful.”

Despite spending the entire 2023/24 campaign on a productive loan in south Wales – Grant played in 39 of 46 league games and started 37 of them – the London-born former Charlton youngster is no stranger to the Albion ranks.

The decision to allow Grant to temporarily exit to the Welsh capital was at least in part to a struggle behind the scenes under former owner Guochuan Lai, where Albion tried to make a saving on wages while somehow also trying to appoint Corberan in his first summer in charge.

There is no shortage of fresh faces following a frenetic summer at The Hawthorns but Grant on Tuesday marks four years since his big-money move on the back of the Baggies’ promotion to the Premier League.

He has made more than 100 appearances in blue and white stripes, including in excess of 80 league starts. Only the 2021/22 campaign under Valerien Ismael and Steve Bruce saw goals arrive at a regular rate of knots.

Grant featured on the left sporadically after Corberan’s appointment in October 2022 but was far from a regular. The Spaniard quickly identified Grant as a left-sided player, rather than someone to lead the line.

“He’s good at that,” Grant agreed. “He looks at players he has and plays to their strengths and that’s credit to him. He’s a very good coach.

“When you don’t play to a player’s strengths and ask them to do something they are probably not used to doing, that isn’t suited to their game, you are probably not going to get the best version of them.”

Grant would like to follow the example of defender Cedric Kipre, who left at the end of his contract in the summer and is now playing top flight French football with Reims, and midfielder Alex Mowatt, who is once again in excellent form for Albion.

Kipre and Mowatt returned from loans at Cardiff and Middlesbrough respectively to become key players under Corberan.

Grant, who is a popular character behind the scenes with players and staff alike, added: “Mowey last year and Ceddy, I wasn’t here but I watched games and you could see, with Ceddy, he didn’t play much before but he really pushed on, the same with Mowey, who’s been excellent to start this season.”