Bartley underwent what was described as “minor surgery” to “clean” out his knee in late October 2024 and was expected to be back within four to six weeks.
He had already missed six games when an injury to Ousmane Diakite in the warm-up before Albion’s game at Sunderland on 26 November led to then head coach Carlos Corberan asking Bartley whether he could step in.
“At the time it was desperate need as we didn’t have any defenders fit,” Bartley said.
“I’d only trained the day before and done half the session, and the plan was for me to train for a week to 10 days before getting any game time but we had an injury going into that game.
“Then Ousmane got an injury in the warm-up and Carlos asked me if I could do 45 minutes and I said ‘yeah I’ll do my absolute best’.”
Bartley managed to play the first half as the Baggies secured a point in a 0-0 draw at the Stadium of Light.
But he said he was aware of issues in his knee for the remainder of the season.
“That probably took a little bit out of my knee coming back that early and for the rest of the season I was more or less playing games and training very minimally and just trying to manage the swelling in my knee,” he said.