Valerien Ismael ‘carefully confident’ of January transfers
West Brom boss Valerien Ismael has admitted he is ‘carefully confident’ about completing January transfers to improve the squad this winter.
The Baggies are currently fourth in the Championship table, just two points behind Bournemouth in the automatic promotion places just past the halfway point of the season.
But the club have been struggling in front of goal with just 30 goals scored so far and have been strongly linked with a striker signing to boost their chances of promotion.
While speaking in his press conference ahead of the game against Derby on December 27th, Ismael admitted he ‘expects’ business to happen.
“Carefully confident,” he said. “Yes, under two ways. I expect that something in incoming and outgoing [will take place].
“At the minute we don’t need to speak about [who might leave].
“The key players will stay with us. The other thing is that it’s the same in January – some players will want to play more and other expectations, other possibilities – so I think it’s more the type of player we are talking about.
“We will see. We need to assess the situation step-by-step,” he added. “The first thing is we want to being someone in. This is our first focus.
“As soon as we can get what we want we go from there to the next step.”
Priorities
Ismael and the club have made their priorities this winter very clear, and with the boss going public he has now applied pressure to the board to deliver.
A striker is the priority signing with goals a big problem, but if that becomes impossible for some reason then they could look to add some creativity instead.
Defensively they have been pretty solid this season, however the possible departure of Sam Johnstone could throw up a few issues also.
West Brom know signing a striker could potentially be the catalyst to a great second half of the season and therefore promotion, so they need to do everything to ensure that signing happens.
If they now don’t succeed in bringing someone in, Ismael will point to that as the reason for any lack of success during the season and the board will have plenty of questions to answer during the rest of the season and the summer.
In other West Brom news, Baggies target striker who already has double-digit goals this season for his club.