Danny Wright Fan Mailbag: West Brom transfer budget should easily be one of best in Championship
Every week we’ll be asking West Brom fans on our Facebook account for questions that will be answered by editor Danny Wright. You can join in by following the West Brom News Facebook account and watching out for weekly mailbag posts.
West Brom fans have been frustrated with the club’s transfer activity over the last 12 months.
Since winning promotion back to the Premier League, both Slaven Bilic and Sam Allardyce have failed to earn financial backing from Chinese owner Guochuan Lai and both have had to make improvements to a Championship-standard squad on a shoestring budget in terms of the Premier League.
Luke Dowling had to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to sign players like Karlan Grant and Grady Diangana last summer while Big Sam was forced to use the loan market to add to the squad in January.
We’re not a million miles away from the transfer window reopening in the summer now and fans are starting to become interested by what may happen at The Hawthorns in regards to incomings and outgoings.
West Brom News editor Danny Wright has been asked about what kind of budget can be expected ahead of next season.
West Brom won’t ever release a figure which says their transfer budget. It was widely reported last year that Bilic had between £20million and £30million to spend on new players but that wasn’t the club releasing that information.
It massively depends on what division we’re playing in next term and what happens in regards to the ongoing situation with the ownership.
Will Guochuan Lai be around? Will someone else take charge and invest in the squad? We’ll have to wait and see on that one but it does seem as though Championship football is most likely.
While Albion fans are unhappy with the club’s lack of spending this season, the financial control in the Championship was very well done. Relegation could have been disastrous but instead, Dowling oversaw the sale of big-money players and helped bring in younger, cheaper players who were eventually capable of winning promotion.
Speaking last month, Express & Star journalist Joseph Masi reported on the Baggies Broadcast that Albion will have a “decent budget” next season in the Championship if they’re relegated and if we’re talking in relative terms, we should have one of the best budgets in the second-tier.
Remember, clubs in the Championship have been hit harder by the impact of COVID than we have. We should be in a far better position to compete due to the money gained in the Premier League this season, the players brought in over the last 12 months and also the parachute payments we’ll be entitled to.
We should be one of the biggest spending clubs in the Championship if we’re relegated and as a result, we should get promoted back straight away as long as a good manager is at the helm.
In other West Brom news, Kevin Phillips claims this player’s value is rising by £1million each time he plays.
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