Which West Brom players will be sold this summer?
- Simon Wilkes
- 10 May 2023
Carlos Corberan says there's 'no time to waste' now West Brom are in the Championship again next season. We look at which players should be sold and the possible starting line-up next campaign.
West Brom manager Carlos Corberan has already 'started to work' on next season's plans having seen his side miss out on a play-off place on the last day of the 2022/23 campaign.
The Baggies were in the Championship relegation zone when Corberan replaced the sacked Steve Bruce in October last year - yet there was still a sense of disappointment among Albion fans that they failed to make the top six to extend their season.
Successive wins on the road at Stoke and Blackpool reignited Albion's play-off bid - but three defeats in their last four games meant they finished in ninth place, three points behind sixth-placed Sunderland, who secured an impressive final-day win at Preston North End.
Former Albion boss Tony Mowbray's Black Cats also bagged a vital victory at The Hawthorns, where they came from 1-0 down to win 2-1 in April, and face Luton Town in the fight for a Premier League place, with Middlesbrough and Coventry meeting in the other play-off clash.
Corberan can, however, look back on an impressive record of 16 wins and four draws from 30 Championship games - and says there is 'no time to waste' as he bids to 'create the team West Bromwich needs to have'.
Funds will be tight for any summer transfer window plans, but the departure of Jake Livermore will ease the wage bill, with veteran defender Erik Pieters also likely to leave the club when his contract expires.
Keeping star men fit will be key for Corberan, with injuries to Matty Phillips, Dara O'Shea, Grady Diangana, Kyle Bartley, Daryl Dike, Jayson Molumby, Okay Yokuslu, Karlan Grant, Nathaniel Chalobah and Alex Palmer having a big impact on Albion's form last season.
Corberan will have a full pre-season with his squad and said: "In football, you don't have time to waste, and the faster we know our possibilities and the resources and everything else, the better for us to start to create the team West Bromwich needs to have.
"It is our responsibility to start to work and move forward, because we know which competition we are going to be playing in.
"The quicker and faster you move forward and try to create everything that we need to, the better it will be for us."
Grant and Diangana are two big-money signings who could be sold this summer to generate transfer funds, having failed to make a consistent impact in the first team since Corberan took the reins.
Former Huddersfield forward Grant has scored 22 goals in 73 league appearances since joining Albion for £15million in October 2020, while Diangana has only netted seven goals in 58 league appearances since his £18million move from West Ham in September 2020.
John Swift (38 league appearances) and Jed Wallace (46) were regular starters in Albion's attacking front three and created half of Albion's 59 league goals last term, so are likely to feature heavily in Corberan's plans if he sticks with his 4-2-3-1 line-up.
Fit-again Phillips is likely to take the third spot behind Brandon Thomas-Asante, who will lead the line in the absence of injury-plagued USA striker Dike.
So Albion's first-choice starting XI for the opening game of the 2023-24 campaign is likely to be: Palmer; Furlong, O'Shea, Bartley, Townsend; Yokuslu, Molumby; Wallace, Swift, Phillips; Thomas-Asante.
