Carlos Corberan focused on West Brom task in hand after Everton links

The Spaniard has bolstered his already-impressive CV in his first three months in the Black Country.

The 39-year-old is well thought of in football circles, but has repeatedly pledged his desire on the job ahead of him with the Baggies and how he has felt immediately settled at home with Albion.

Corberan was recently mentioned in relation to a job at West Ham with pressure having cranked up on David Moyes. He was this week said to be on an Everton shortlist following Frank Lampard’s exit. It is understood no contact was made with Albion and the Toffees appear set to name Sean Dyche as boss.

When asked about the reports, Corberan said: “It’s been a difficult week for me, because the defeat that we had was painful.

“The way I didn’t see my team attack the way I wanted, maybe we weren’t as aggressive in some moments as I’d want us to be.

“We have analysed a lot the opponent and the previous opponent this week, because this is my focus as manager.

“The other things... I don’t know, you can tell me that there are rumours this week, another week the rumour disappears, my focus is my work – after the previous game we need to keep growing a lot, to be a more competitive team.”

Corberan this week marked three months at Albion. Defeat in his first game in charge against Sheffield United – one of just three defeats in 12 league games – sent the Baggies bottom of the Championship.

Then followed a sparkling rise up to sixth prior to defeat at Burnley last time out. Corberan’s ability to coach and inspire improvement within a squad rock-bottom both in the table and on confidence has led to admiring glances elsewhere.

The head coach, though, is not bothered about what has already been and is focused on growing and developing at The Hawthorns. He has repeatedly spoke of being humbled by the scale of Albion and the response of supporters.

“In front of me at this club there are many challenges,” he added. “We will have moments where things are going well and we are winning games, there’ll be difficult moments – this is the work of the coach, to face the difficult moments we have.

“I need to make the players ready for the challenges that we are going to have with the mentality to keep growing, be ambitious and be self demanding of ourselves.

“This is my focus. I am very pleased to be working here, I’ve said before that these things cannot change.”

Ex-Huddersfield and Olympiacos boss Corberan has tried to immerse himself in the club and its proud history since his October arrival. As he leads the Baggies in FA Cup action in Bristol today, he admitted to being blown away by the club’s history in the competition, in which they are five-time winners.

The last of these came in 1968 with the legendary Tony ‘Bomber’ Brown playing a lead role.

One of Corberan’s desires was to invite Brown, who works on a matchday with BBC WM, into training to tell stories and inspire from days gone by. Brown this week joined loans manager Chris Brunt for a day at training, where he watched on and chatted with players and management.