Albion manager Mark McGhee today forgot about his striker crisis and predicted his side are still capable of kicking off the season with a victory.

McGhee's options up front for Saturday's Cola-Cola Championship opener away to Steve Coppell's Reading have been decimated.

Leon Knight is banned for the first three games, Chris McPhee is still recovering from a pre-season foot fracture and John Piercy has joined the casualty list for the start of the campaign with a recurrence of colitis.

Target man Chris Iwelumo moved to Germany instead of accepting a two-year contract while his potential replacement, Serbian trialist Zsombor Kerekes, was ruled out by an upbeat McGhee as not mobile enough for the First Division.

McGhee said: "There is not that much we can do about all that. We are not losing sleep over it.

"We still believe we have got enough players here who are fit and able to put together 11 players who have a chance of winning at Reading."

McGhee has already decided who will partner new signing Maheta Molango but is giving nothing away.

He said. "Steve (Coppell) is not daft anyway, he knows the options. It's not as if we are going to bring in somebody unknown to him, it's going to be Harty (Gary Hart) or David Lee or Jake (Robinson), someone like that."

Ben Roberts, battling to be fit to face the club he served on loan three seasons ago, is hoping to resume training today after resting a back problem for 48 hours.