West Brom boss Carlos Corberan insisted Josh Maja’s brilliant start to the season was only possible because the striker worked on his fitness during the summer.
Maja, who endured an injury-hit first season at Albion, scored a hat-trick as the Baggies began the new Championship campaign with a 3-1 victory at QPR.
He started just one game and managed one goal last term, but the future looks brighter for Maja based on his outstanding display of finishing at Loftus Road.
Lucas Andersen gave Rangers a 16th-minute lead but Maja equalised 10 minutes later and struck twice more in the second half.
“The last year was unfortunately a very complicated year for him,” Corberan said.
“He suffered a very unfair situation in the last year but came back this summer with the mentality to recover this year and to make his best.
“He has been working very hard in pre-season and that’s why today he was able to impact the game.
“If he hadn’t been working in the way that he was working – when the team had holidays, he was working a lot – it would have been impossible today to see a performance like the one we saw.”
It has been a tough summer for the Baggies, who were beaten in the Championship play-offs in May and face financial restrictions after missing out on promotion back to the top flight.
But a defiant Corberan said: “Don’t be thinking about what we don’t have, be thinking about what we have and facing the challenge with the right mentality.
“When you have the limitations, the level of demand of (hard) work is higher.
“When you don’t have many options, the level that you have to show on the pitch to achieve the result you want to achieve is very high.
“When your resources are limited you need to work in a way that is very demanding.”
QPR boss Marti Cifuentes admitted the result was a “reality check” after an encouraging end to last season.
The Spaniard led Rangers away from the relegation zone in impressive fashion but has since been quick to play down expectations.
“I’m not satisfied with our performance,” he said. “Even though we took the lead and had good moments, after we scored we started to drop (back) and basically the equaliser was a consequence of us dropping too much and defending too passive.
“The three goals actually were pretty bad. West Brom shot on goal four times and three were a goal. That shows a big difference.
“It’s a good reality check to understand something that I’ve been speaking a lot about in the last weeks, about understanding that the reality of this league is very challenging.
“We finished in a good way last season, which is fine, but it’s not going to help us to win any games during this season.
“So it’s a good reality check and hopefully in the long term it will help everyone to understand where we are.
“We need to be very humble and work very hard to achieve what we want to achieve.”
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