Carlos Corberán says he has been preparing his players to face one of the “most uncomfortable” teams in the Sky Bet Championship this weekend.
The Baggies welcome the Spaniard’s former club Huddersfield Town to The Hawthorns on Saturday afternoon (ko 3pm).
Albion head into the encounter with a very strong home record under Corberán, picking up 39 points from a possible 51 since his arrival in October 2022.
Huddersfield arrive without a win yet this term, but the boss has warned his group they are coming up against opponents who have a very unique way of approaching matches and insists they’ll have to find new “solutions” to earn another positive result.
Carlos said: “I was the head coach there for two years and they were two massive years.
“The first year, I suffered a lot because we had to try and stay in the Championship and we managed to do that.
“In the second year we created a team which managed to reach the Play-Off final. Some of those players will play against us on Saturday, the likes of Lee Nicholls, Matty Pearson, Jonathan Hogg, Josh Ruffles, Josh Koroma, Danny Ward and Sorba Thomas.
“They were with me two years ago and I have a lot of respect for them.
“Huddersfield are one of the most uncomfortable teams you can play against in the Championship, because what their coach is doing with them is totally different to what is happening at other clubs.
“How they play, is different to every other single club in the division. I mean it in terms of how they defend.
“I know this, because I was defending like this during one part of my career – the first year at Huddersfield.
“On Saturday, we are going to play against one of the most uncomfortable teams who also have several good players.
“I have given this information to my team to be prepared to face a totally different game compared to the ones we have had recently against Leeds and Middlesbrough.
“Against those teams, you can recognise space and a structure. Against Huddersfield, it is different. They follow players and they are a man-marking team.
“We need to find new solutions so we have had a different week of preparation to be able to try and find those solutions on Saturday.
“The better results we get at home, the more the opponents will try to beat us.
“We have really good numbers at home and this fact has to increase our determination to compete in games in the right way. We know the other team is going to try and challenge us more and try to break our strong record.”
The boss was also speaking to members of the media on Friday morning about transfer deadline day.
Carlos was honest about his hopes and expectations for the final day of the summer window, revealing the club have aspirations to sign a right wing-back.
“Today is deadline day and it’s the day before a game, so it’s all a little bit strange.
“We would prefer to have deadline day a few days before today so we can prepare for the game with the squad you definitely know you are going to have, but I am trying to just forget about this and prepare as I usually would for any game.
“It’s a day which affects every single club.
“We have one target and that is to add one player in a position which we need to cover. If we can add the cover, we will become an even more competitive team.
“We are working to cover the right wing-back position because we haven’t played with a line of five before and now we are playing some games with a line of five.
“For me, at some point, we need to have the option of the right wing-back position.
“We have the options in the academy with the likes of Tom Fellows who was playing in that position at times out on loan in League Two last year, as well as Ethan Ingram, but he has been playing as more of a right back in the academy teams.
“I can only give my final evaluation of the market at the end of the market. I still don’t know what will happen on this day, nobody does because the market is always changing.
“We are ready to react and I respect the effort of the club a lot.”
