Carlos Corberan has explained why West Ham loanee Mipo Odubeko has had a limited part to play for the Terriers so far this season – and insisted that chances will come the 18-year -old’s way if he continues his ‘excellent’ attitude to trying to break into the first team.

The striker has made just four appearances totalling 64 minutes since arriving as Huddersfield Town’s final summer signing the day before transfer deadline day at the end of August.

Odubeko was left out of Corberan’s matchday squad altogether over the last two games, with Danny Ward starting up front in Town’s front three and Fraizer Campbell preferred as the sole centre forward option on the bench.

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Corberan said: “All our decisions depend on how I see the progress and the different progress of each player.

“It’s true that we are playing just with one striker [on the bench] because another player that for me can play as a winger and as a striker is Josh Koroma and we are usually playing with one winger as a wing-back (Sorba Thomas) … plus we play with one striker.

“So sometimes I see that we don’t have the need to have two strikers on the bench because having winger that can play as a striker, sometimes you can cover more positions selecting another profile of players that allows you to switch any situation, any circumstance, that can appear during the game.

“So for example if I have to leave out a centre-back to have another extra striker, maybe something might happen with one of the centre-backs and continuing playing with three centre-backs will be more complicated if I don’t have a centre-back on the bench.

“At the beginning [Mipo] was involved in the games, and he wasn’t involved in the previous two games because he’s a very young player with a lot of potential but he still needs to continuing growing and developing to make an impact in the Championship.

“But it doesn’t mean he can’t play. For me he is a player with the skills and the potential to play, it’s just the adaptation to the process, the maturity and the mobility that he needs to add to his game to compete and have a better impact in the Championship. That is what he wants and that is what we want with him.

“But the fact he is not involved does not mean he is not working well or we aren’t working a lot with him. We are working more with him when I know he is not going to be involved in a game.

“This week is different because in the last week he’s not trained with the group because he was feeling unwell. Now let’s see if he can come tomorrow, but the normal thing [would be] that he is not going to be available tomorrow.”

Odubeko is far from alone in needing to wait for his chance, with January signing Rolando Aarons yet to appear this season and summer signing Josh Ruffels having just a few minutes off the bench against Blackburn to his name.

Midfielder Alex Vallejo was also introduced to the side slowly last season after arriving as a free agent two days after transfer deadline day but emerged into the first team in the second half of the season and became a regular starter from January to March.

Corberan said of taking a similar approach to Odubeko’s place in the squad: “For me it’s necessary when you don’t have the experience of playing in the Championship, especially when you are a young player arriving to this squad on the last day without making pre-season with the team.

“Plus, arriving with experience of playing under-23s games, for me it’s not the same when you are facing under-23s defenders as when you are facing Championship defenders.

“So there is a different adaptation but for me the personality of Mipo has been excellent. His character and his self-focus on his improvement has been excellent too.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t use the previous week in the way I wanted to use it because the idea with Mipo was to play the other day with the B team like we played Ruffels and Rolando Aarons, who are players that haven’t started for the first team yet

“That’s what I wanted to give 90 minutes to the first-team players who have not had the opportunity to compete in the first XI with enough minutes, but with Mipo we couldn’t do it because he was unwell.”