Mowbray has faith in Miller

Miller: Lean spell

Tony Mowbray has backed Ishmael Miller to overcome his ongoing Premier League goal drought.

The powerful forward netted 16 times during West Brom's successful promotion campaign last season, helping to secure a permanent switch from Manchester City in January.

He began the season leading the Baggies line as a lone frontman, but has fallen down the pecking order after sustaining a minor knock.

He returned to first-team action alongside Roman Bednar for the weekend win over Fulham, but once again failed to find the target.

Miller has now featured in six top-flight fixtures without troubling the scorers, but Mowbray is confident the 21-year-old will hit the goal trail in the near future.

Unfortunate

"Ishmael has been unfortunate. He had chances to get his name on the score-sheet in the first three or four games of the season and then got himself injured.

"Then Roman comes in, scores a couple of penalties, then scores a scrappy goal for the winner against Fulham, and he is really off and running and his confidence is high.

"He has got great belief in himself and let's hope he can continue scoring - but I am sure the other strikers will score as we go along as well.

"Ishmael is a confident boy and, if anybody is trying to knock him, it's hard to knock the belief out of him."

Careful

Meanwhile, Mowbray could be set to welcome three key men back into his squad over the coming weeks.

Portuguese midfielder Filipe Teixeira is set to play in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Leicester next week, and will be hoping to make his Baggies debut against Manchester United on 18th October.

And Chris Brunt is back in training after missing West Brom's last two games with a hamstring problem.

Abdoulaye Meite remains sidelined with a calf injury but Ryan Donk's impressive form of late means Mowbray will refrain from rushing the towering centre-half back into action.

"We need to be careful with Meite," he told the club's official website.

"Abou is someone we hope will resume training next week but, having had a false start before, we won't take any risks and will take extra care.

"But Ryan's two performances and two clean sheets have lessened the urgency and give us more time without thinking 'right, we've got to get him ready for this game or that game'."