The Baggies lost 1-0 at Bournemouth on Saturday.
West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Pulis has told BBC Sport that Saido Berahino is not mentally prepared for Premier League football at the moment, and suggested that the club have “lost” the striker for the last year.
Berahino has been the subject of intense speculation about his future ever since his complaint at not being allowed to leave to join Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2015.
The 23-year-old scored 20 goals in all competitions in 2014-15, but has scored just four Premier League goals in 32 appearances since the end of that campaign.
Often criticised last season for going AWOL in matches, Berahino has been ineffective thus far this term, and was substituted after an hour of Saturday’s loss to the Cherries.
After the game, Pulis raised a question mark over Berahino’s mentality and suggested that Albion have effectively been without their former star man for the last 12 months.
The manager told BBC Sport: “For over a season Saido has been wrapped up in where he’s going and he’s playing in the top league in the world. You have to be mentally prepared, you can’t just switch it on and off and he needs to understand that.
“In the 20 months I’ve been here he was a talisman for the first six months but then we’ve lost him for the last year. It’s been difficult.
“It’s been an interesting club to manage for me, the way it’s run is different, but also dealing with a player that has for two thirds of that period not doing really what he should be has been difficult.”
Albion have endured a poor start to the season despite winning at Crystal Palace on the opening day of the season, since sharing a goalless draw with Middlesbrough and losing to Everton and now Bournemouth.
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