Maja will be involved in the Baggies’ 20-man squad at the King Power Stadium but the head coach explained he does not see it as the ideal time to use the luckless centre-forward from the off.
Albion’s striker availability issue has reared its head again with the one-match suspension of top goalscorer Brandon Thomas-Asante tomorrow and the trip to the East Midlands comes just too soon for Maja, back from four months sidelined with an ankle injury, to start.
With last summer’s free transfer Maja a substitute, Corberan will mull whether captain Jed Wallace, January loanee Andi Weimann or Grady Diangana, a deeper attacker, will lead the line for the visitors tomorrow.
“It’ll depend on the game,” Corberan said of how many minutes Maja could play. “If you ask me if he can start, I’d say no. Then, how many minutes from the bench? It’ll depend, understanding the type of game we’re going to play. Physically he’s not at the level to start the game.”
Maja played a cameo role for his first senior minutes since December two Wednesdays ago in the home win over Rotherham, having only made the squad due to Wallace’s illness.
It was then decided he would play an hour for the under-21s last Friday rather than be involved against Sunderland.
“Very positive,” the head coach said of his striker’s progress. “It was necessary for him to play these minutes with the B team.
“It was in a different team, against a different team, but physically he had a very strong previous week which can help him to be close to his level.
“How long will it take for him to achieve his level? It’ll depend on the game exposure and the number of training we do. Now we have full weeks between games will increase the training times.
“We need to understand, though, how many weeks he has been out, how many months. It wasn’t just the last injury, it was the previous injury too. We cannot expect from Maja what we might have expected if he had not been injured.”
Corberan gave his troops two days off on Sunday and Monday following last Saturday’s Sunderland defeat. That was decided before the visit of the Black Cats as the head coach noted an intense run of five games in a relatively short period of time, including the Easter double-header and a Wednesday fixture.
