West Bromwich Albion manager Steve Bruce has admitted his side won't have a huge amount to spend during the summer window, speaking candidly in an interview with the Sunday People (5/6 paper edition; page 54).

The Baggies are in need of fresh faces this summer following a disappointing 2021/22 campaign, lacking depth in certain areas and struggling to score the goals needed to fire them into the promotion mix.

John Swift has come in as their first signing of the summer in a bid to address this problem, with the 26-year-old registering 11 goals and 13 assists in 38 league appearances for former side Reading last term, a record he will be eager to replicate in the West Midlands.

 

 

The advanced midfielder arrived on a free transfer and a couple of other free agents could be on their way to The Hawthorns in the near future, with Darragh Lenihan, Tom Lawrence and Jed Wallace all being linked with a move recently.

Following the £7m arrival of Daryl Dike in January, this careful spending comes as no real surprise despite their hopes of getting back to the Premier League at the second time of asking.

And once again, Bruce has hinted that these free additions are a sign of things to come with a very limited amount of money to spend in the coming months.

He said (via West Brom News): "The squad here – a large part of it – has been together for a long time. It needs to be freshened up, changed.

"In a way, perhaps, like when I took Birmingham up… or Hull. We are not going to have a mountain of money to spend. We have to be shrewd. Wheel and deal and be ahead of the queue.

"There’s enough players out there to improve us and have a hungrier, fresher group than we have at the minute. Until now, we haven’t coped. Given a bit of time, we will."

The Verdict:

Although they won't have a big pile of money to spend, they can still attract some great free agents and this is why Albion supporters should have optimism going into the summer window, having already recruited Swift.

It would be interesting to see what wage he's on considering he was previously the subject of Premier League interest - and there is a chance they are paying a hefty wage for him.

They may also fork out on bumper contracts for others including Lenihan amid interest from elsewhere but they can't afford their wage bill to be too high, so they should only offer potential targets a certain amount before they pull out of negotiations.

The loan market may also prove to be fruitful for them, enabling them to borrow top-quality players and potentially not needing to pay all of their wages if parent clubs are happy to subsidise some of their salary.

Nottingham Forest certainly benefitted from the loan market last term with the likes of Philip Zinckernagel, Keinan Davis, Djed Spence and James Garner all proving to be crucial to their promotion push, especially the latter two who deserve to play in the top flight next term.