Experience vital in West Brom January search
Albion boss Valerien Ismael is targeting players with experience of English football as he works to strengthen his squad next month.
The Frenchman has said he is confident of making at least one addition when the January transfer window opens – with a striker understood to be the number one priority.
Ismael has contacts across Europe having played in France and managed in both Germany and Austria.
But while the European market is one he is keen to explore in the future, he feels it’s hard for players arriving from abroad to adapt to the demands of the Championship in January.
“January is a tricky one to go into the international market,” Ismael said.
“Players for us need to speak English to understand straight away what we want because we don’t have any break.
“You play on January 2 and so on.
“And you need a player that can help you straight away.
“It’s a tricky one because if you take a player from abroad and he cannot speak English – maybe he has the quality – but you don’t know if he will adapt to the Championship straight away.
“It’s a balance between what you need and what you want to create for the future and what is available. This is the end product. And you need to balance the three things and hope you can pick the player you want.
“In January it is difficult because you don’t have time, you need the money and it’s not easy to get everything going in the same direction.
“But we have some trigger and we want to pick the players that will speed up the process.”
