SAM Allardyce's claim that he has never had a stronger squad looks like being tested to the limits.

Wanderers came down to earth with a bump at West Brom on Saturday -- the first Premiership team this season to lose to one of the newly-promoted trio -- and the problems are starting to pile up.

Jay-Jay Okocha has been withdrawn from World Cup duty and Henrik Pedersen is likely to follow suit, both having aggravated earlier injuries and been substituted at The Hawthorns. Kevin Nolan is undergoing surgery on Monday to clear up an ankle problem that has been causing him discomfort since last season and spearhead striker, Kevin Davies, was in so much pain from a rib injury at the weekend that he could not even make the Albion trip.

And with eight other members of his squad on international duty, the Reebok boss knows full well the potential for even more selection problems for the home game against Crystal Palace on Saturday week -- a match Wanderers desperately need to win to restore their early-season confidence.

Having pressed Les Ferdinand and Tal Ben Haim into service in place of the injured Davies and Nicky Hunt, who was left out, and given Blessing Kaku his first taste of Premiership action, Allardyce has already been forced to use the fringe members of his squad and he fears he may have to rely on them even more in the weeks to come.

"They are picking up a little bit of experience in the Premiership," he said, "but we know we will be using more and more of them as the season goes on as fatigue, the internationals and maybe one or two injuries or suspensions kick in. We'll be relying on them heavily then."

Allardyce confirmed the withdrawal of Okocha from the Nigeria squad for the World Cup qualifier against Gabon after the captain suffered a recurrence of a groin injury, and suggested he could withdraw top scorer Pedersen from the Denmark squad.

"Jay-Jay's got no chance at all," he said after the 2-1 defeat, "and Henrik has a bit of an Achilles problem and may not be available either.

"He's been carrying it for a while. It looked like it was causing him a lot of problems, because he wasn't his usual self. At least I hope it was a case of him being injured, rather than just his performance, although a lot of players didn't produce the quality we know they can."

Allardyce said he selected Ben Haim ahead of Nicky Hunt for the right-back slot because of the England U21 international's recent dip in form.

"Nicky was rested because he's not been doing as well as he has been," the manager said.

"I felt we needed some defensive solidity, which I thought Tal would give us. He did a good job and would have done better if the rest of his team-mates had played to their best.

"He did what I wanted him to do and that was nullify West Brom's attack for much of the game, but he's experienced the low of a defeat in the Premiership. Les got a full game and Blessing Kaku had a taste of it. We've a strong squad but, sadly, that didn't pay dividends because most of the players didn't get near their best."