Berahino exiled to France for fitness boot camp

Saido Berahino has been sent to undergo specialist training in France in an attempt to get fit, West Brom head coach Tony Pulis confirmed.

The former England Under-21 international has only played four times in the Premier League this season, with the forward struggling for fitness and unable to improve his form from last term when he scored just four goals in 31 appearances.

Berahino has endured a difficult time since reportedly becoming distracted by transfer speculation at the end of the 2014-15 campaign, and now finds himself sent away for an intensive four-day boot camp in France.

And Pulis is optimistic that Berahino will return a much sharper player.

“Saido’s off at the moment in a fitness centre, working with a fella that I worked with when I was very young in management, 20 years ago,” Pulis told a media conference.

“He will be in France for four days to top himself up, and he’s going to go through everything that we’ve done so far to enable him to be at a level that, fingers crossed, when he does come back he’ll be sharp and able to maintain Premier League football.

“Saido’s bought into this. The fella that he’s going out to see has got a lot of experience. I know him personally; we’re not sending him somewhere I don’t know.

“He’ll look at everything we’ve done, assess what we’ve done and make a judgement on what Saido has to do over the next two weeks before the Burnley game. 

“It will be a really good experience for Saido and good for the club because we can get an outside view on his conditioning and what we’ve done. It’s right for the kid.

“It’s very upmarket and they’re very good. The fella is very good and Saido understands he’s going down there to work.”

Berahino’s trip means he will miss Sunday’s trip to Leicester City and West Brom will also be without Nacer Chadli.

With the international break on the horizon, West Brom opted to send the Belgium midfielder in for surgery on a minor knee injury on Thursday and they are hopeful he will return against Burnley on November 21.

“He’s had a little trim of his cartilage so we’re hoping he’ll be fit for the Burnley game,” he added.

“It’s important to get it done, he played the game against Man City and he was carrying a little bit right at the end.

“It’s better that we get it done and dealt with as quick as we can. The operation went really well.

“I think it’s best that we’ve got this done now instead of trying to push him through another game and making it worse.”