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West Brom manager Steve Bruce hopes Semi Ajayi recovers fast from up injury to strengthen the team’s back line as action hits up in the English Championship.
The Baggies lost the Super Eagles defender to an ankle injury at Wigan two weekends ago and the he will spend a period on the sidelines.
“He hasn’t played a lot of football,” Bruce admitted. “But with Semi and what happened to him and where we were, with his experience and know how, we need to get him up to speed quick. We’ll see where he is in a couple of days.”
The Baggies boss’ most recent update on Ajayi was that ankle ligament damage will see him spend a few weeks out of the side. The Nigeria defender fortunately avoided knee damage, which was feared at the time.
Bruce said of the incident, which occurred during Wigan’s opening goal at the DW Stadium: “He’s got an ankle injury. I don’t want to put a timescale on it. He’ll certainly miss a few weeks. That’s certain. We’re unfortunate, what can you do? He’s twisted his ankle badly. These things happen. It’s him now and Dike.
“We’ve unfortunately lost a big player. His knee is okay. Whether it was nerve damage from the ankle, we’ve scanned them both. He’s going to be a few weeks. It’s ligament damage.
“He’s badly twisted his ankle, we’ve got to be patient but it’ll be a few weeks. He’s a tough lad, because he did the injury in the incident before their goal. He played on for 20 minutes, that was a strange one.”
Ajayi joined Daryl Dike in the Albion treatment room. The frontman tore a thigh muscle on the eve of the first home game of the season against Watford last month.
Bruce admitted the 22-year-old faces ‘a long way back’ given the severity of a second bad muscle injury since his £7million move in January.
“It’s been four weeks. He’s on the road to recovery,” Bruce said.
“It’s a long way back with all the nonsense he has to go through, but we wish him the best of luck.”
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