‘Fun, but chaos’ - West Brom star Daryl Dike makes Carlos Corberan admission amid playoff push

West Bromwich Albion forward Daryl Dike has praised the impact of the ‘incredible’ Carlos Corberan after his side’s surge up the Championship table into promotion contention.

The American only managed 12 minutes of action this season before the new manager took over, after suffering with injuries since he signed for the club in January of 2022.

However, the 22-year-old is back in business after making nine consecutive league appearances and Dike has thanked Corberan for his guidance. “It’s what you want as a player, to have a good relationship with your manager,” Dike said in an interview with WBA.co.uk.

“At the beginning of the process of him joining, I think he took it upon himself to get to know each player in terms of what they’re like on the pitch. For me, with my injury history here, he wanted to keep me safe, but at the same time, also wanted to put me in the best possible position to be able to play and compete as well as I could.

“Throughout that process, both the manager and the medical staff have done a brilliant job of preparing me for action and keeping me healthy.”

Corberan has inspired Albion to an incredible start to life under the new regime, catapulting them from bottom of the league to within a point of the play-off spots. And Dike has insisted that the Spaniard is the reason for their turnaround.

“You can always learn under him,” Dike said. “Every single training session and every single day he is pushing me to be better. He wants to give you all the tools at his disposal to help you get better as a player.

“He puts so much effort into everything he does, not every manager does that. One thing that is incredible about Carlos is how eager he is to help you,” the striker continued.

The tightness of the second-tier table has once again been prominent during the campaign so far, with just five points separating third from 12th. However, the stowaways of Burnley and Sheffield United are well clear of the play-off chasing pack at the moment.

But the fine margins have motivated the Albion squad to win games.

“It’s strange because you know that if you lose a game you can drop down a few places,” Dike said. “But at the same time, because it’s so close, you know that winning a game can push you right back up and right back into contention.

“It gives you that extra motivation in the back of your head, but it could also be seen as pressure. If teams are close to you in terms of points, it gives you that determination to know that you have to get the job done.

“We can’t slow down, even though we’ve had a big winning streak. It’s fun, but it’s chaos, we go into every game knowing it’ll be difficult, whether we’re playing a team in fourth or in 16th. It puts us in a mindset of knowing we always have to be ready to be at our best, no matter what opponent we are facing.”