Striker Daryl Dike in countdown to West Brom return

The luckless Baggies frontman has not featured since 2-2 draw at Ipswich on February 10 last season, where he snapped his Achilles tendon.

It was the opposite Achilles to the one he injured the previous April at Stoke, but Dike has endured in excess of two years on the sidelines during his near-three years at The Hawthorns.

The United States international, 24, took part in team training last Friday for the first time, but still has a five-to-six week road ahead before he completes the necessary steps to return to contention.

“Last week is a week where we have moved a step,” Corberan said. “Let’s say he has three steps to complete, the first is with the medical staff, the second he is working with physical coaches, during that step he needs to make some individual specific drills according to his position, and some drills with the team.

“Today is the first day he has made some drills with the team. It doesn’t mean training with the team. It means that maybe he can make 10 per cent of training. He has started this process.

“But it is still going to be more than one month, five or six weeks probably, to finalise this process and to be in the last step which is available to be involved with the team.”

Dike will be assisted by upcoming international breaks in October and November to help him step up his return to first-team action.

Albion break for a fortnight after the home game against Millwall on October 5 and there is another round of international fixtures in the middle of November, around the period Corberan suggested Dike could be ready for contention.

The striker, a £7million recruit from Orlando City under Valerien Ismael in January 2002, has scored eight goals in 32 appearances for Albion. Just 17 of those have been starts in almost three years.

Aside from his two Achilles lay-offs, Dike has been sidelined with two lengthy muscle injuries during his time on these shores.

Corberan, understandably, insists there is no need for Albion to rush Dike to full health.

“For sure (it will be a slow process managing him),” Corberan said. “It is a different leg, but the same injury and with the number of months he has been out we need to go step-by-step, managing the situation, analysing everything we do, not rush because there is no need.

“There is the motivation to involve him in games, but we need to build little-by-little, to follow the process to make him ready to compete.”