West Brom stars told that they can impress on loan
West Brom's young loan stars were today challenged to force their way into the first-team shake-up by impressing in the Football League.
The Baggies have sent Chris Wood, Kemar Roofe, James Hurst, Scott Allan and Saido Berahino out on loan while highly-rated midfielder George Thorne could follow.
And assistant head coach Kevin Keen has told them impressing while on loan could improve their prospects of challenging for a place in Steve Clarke's first team.
"They are in Steve's thoughts all the time," said Keen. "James and Saido have done really well for us in training and impressed and that's the reason we wanted to get them out to get games.
"Hopefully they will come back better, stronger and fitter and more game-hardened and around Christmas, when we get that run of games, they will be in the gaffer's thoughts, depending on how they do and on injuries.
"We feel comfortable with what we've got in our squad, and at the same time the young lads like Saido, James and Scott need to play games to get that little bit of experience.
"We felt that this month was a good month to do it because after Saturday we've got the international break and we don't actually play that many games."
Allan and Roofe have moved to League One with MK Dons and Northampton respectively, but Wood, Hurst and Berahino will get Championship experience after linking up with Millwall, Birmingham and Peterborough. And Keen insisted the stuttering starts to the season experienced by Blues and Posh did not threaten the moves.
"We were looking at the fact they are Championship clubs and they were going to play in good games," he said. "They are going to be going to other good clubs, playing decent games and getting good experience.
"We didn't think about anybody being bottom of the league. It was more the stature of the games, being in the Championship rather than League One or League Two."