IT isn't long ago that Steve Cotterill was linked with the West Brom managerial job.

In the end, Tony Mowbray was named as Bryan Robson's replacement at The Hawthorns in October last year after Nigel Pearson and Craig Shakespeare had brief spells at the helm.

In a way, though, Cotterill will be managing the Baggies tonight, but for the benefit of his Burnley side.

The Clarets boss is unsure whether Jason Koumas will be involved, and what type of role the former Cardiff midfielder will play if he is.

It's possible that the 27-year-old may not even start, if Mowbray decides to give Richard Chaplow a run-out against his former side.

But Cotterill has got plenty of methods up his sleeve to be able to combat whatever decision the West Brom boss makes. It's just a matter of man-management.

"I think it's very important you don't let Jason Koumas have too many runs at you - we don't want him picking the ball up in too much space and being able to run at you. And by keeping him quiet you've got to make sure you don't let him shoot because he's got good shooting boots.

"But just generally I think you have to be very careful with what you do when you have the ball," Cotterill said.

"Because he's one of those intelligent players where he doesn't have to stay and play left wing. He ends up right wing, central midfield, off the strikers and I think that the longer the game goes on he definitely does vacate that space.

"To a certain degree you have to gamble a little bit early on, because if he vacates the space it might be the space where you can go and win the game.

"As the game goes on, if you are winning, you may have to change your formation to thicken that midfield up a bit so he doesn't have too much space to run into.

"It's not a negative tactic, just sometimes a sensible one maybe.

"Djemba-Djemba will definitely fill that space.

"Sometimes we ask James O'Connor to. It depends on how their two centre halves are playing as to what we tell James O'Connor to do.

"You don't know that until the moment, but after 20 minutes I'll have a bigger idea on what Djemba-Djemba and James O'Connor need to do on the night.

"We normally see how the first 20 minutes go. We tend to look at that quite a lot.

"It depends on how far their centre halves are apart, but that depends on what type of strikers you pick at the start of the game to decide if you want Djemba-Djemba to be sitting and James O'Connor to go down there."

Cotterill added: "We know it's a tough place to come here, when we're on it. I think our crowd have been quite quiet lately because the games we've had, they would be looking at league tables and expecting us to win those games. I don't think that will be the case tonight. They know it's not only a challenge for us but a challenge for them so I think they'll be noisy."