Carlos Corberan has explained how he sees Josh Maja fitting into his West Bromwich Albion starting line-up – and that can involve the newest player at the club playing alongside current first choice forward Brandon Thomas-Asante.
Albion added Maja on a three-year contract after he decided against remaining in France with Bordeaux in May, having scored 17 goals last year.
Read Also: Chief of Army Staff commended on sports transformation
Still catching up with the fitness levels of his new teammates, Maja missed out on the opening day defeat at Blackburn Rovers over the weekend and, it was pointed out by Corberan last Friday, the club were aiming to involve the striker in the squad to face Swansea at The Hawthorns this coming weekend.
“First of all we’ve covered the need to add a new number nine to the team,” Corberan explained.
“This is something that, after the injury of Dike and Grant leaving, we had a need to bring in a number nine. We started to see our options, and watched the possibilities for us. Maja is a player who can give us different things to the things we have right now.
“If you have three strikers in the team, you can find similar strikers, or if you play with one striker, you can have one alternative striker to another. Maja can play with Asante, or without Asante. This is one of the main reasons he is here. He can play as a number nine or with another, their skills mean that both players can play together.
“If you wanted to play a striker, and it was going to be Asante or Maja, you want the players to share your values. With Maja, he gives us the option to play with Asante and without him. That’s very important. The skills Maja offers are totally different to the skills Asante can offer. That they’re different profiles means that the players can play together.
“Maja is a link striker, Asante is more of a running striker. Maja is comfortable to receive the ball between the lines, and Asante is comfortable to run behind the defender, so both players are comfortable playing together – but that doesn’t mean they will play together! It’s something that can happen. When we have both players ready – now is not the case – both can have minutes together.”