West Brom transfer window verdict: Clear strategy deserves admiration, Bilkul know what they want
There is no denying a refreshing vibrance in this Albion squad - and supporters are excited by what it could produce.
It was always likely to be a busy transfer window at The Hawthorns.
Ten senior additions, as well as nine exits including loans, highlights the sea of change under new boss James Morrison.
Owners Bilkul always had to throw their support behind club legend Morrison. Indeed it is thanks to the former midfielder the Baggies are not toiling in League One this season.
Morrison has been backed - though it was absolutely needed. Some big players and personalities - Jed Wallace, Karlan Grant, Daryl Dike, Josh Maja, Josh Griffiths, Alex Mowatt and Krystian Bielik et al - left at varying points. Big wages were saved.
They needed replacing. Improving on, even.
Albion entered the transfer window on more sure footing for the first time in several years. The debacle of the spring profit and sustainability (PSR) financial charge from the English Football League (EFL) was seen as the nadir of the struggles of the post-Lai regime.
Fees in or around the region of £15million were spent - and spread well across the 10 new faces.
That the new season has begun with such optimism and verve is credit to Morrison, his new backroom staff and players old and new for settling seamlessly. It had the potential to be messier.
The window was not perfect. Many onlookers have Albion a striker light and that is hard to argue.
One was on Morrison’s wishlist and the club scoured the market for a deal that worked but one was not forthcoming. There is much onus on Jimmy-Jay Morgan and Aune Heggebo, with Barney Stewart feeling has way into a new level.
But elsewhere the squad looks sufficiently bulked and re-energised. It looks healthy and ready to deliver on some early-season Championship promise.
What is most telling is Albion and Bilkul have really delivered on the strategy the club have identified.
Recruit young, help build players up for greater things - with the Baggies or elsewhere. Look around the globe for opportunities. Develop and move on for significant profit when the time comes, all while hopefully progressing the club.
Bilkul found the oldest squad in the Championship when they purchased a flailing Albion for £60million including debts more than two years ago. A squad and club heading nowhere and haemorrhaging money.
Each window Albion have been injected with a welcome freshness. It’s hardly been a smooth success - last season was an unmitigated disaster bar, mercifully, the final two months.
This summer effectively saw the remainder of the players purchased in the doomed Lai era depart as free transfers. Wallace, Grant, Dike and Maja were all big earners. They had ability and experience and that is why Morrison wanted to keep some of them, but the club have moved on impressively.
The average age of Albion’s 10 additions is 24. The age of the exits is 28.
Of the nine outfield additions just one - the returning Conor Townsend (33) - is older than 27.
The Baggies were around 10th youngest in the Championship last season. This season so far - three league games in - they have used the third-youngest (24.5 years) collective so far.
The pendulum has swung so far the other way there will be some wondering if the youth push has gone too far.
Morgan (20), Rabby Nzingoula (20), Felix Tunde (21), Barney Stewart (22), Toby Collyer (22), Nolan Galves (23), Brayann Pereira (23) and Felix Horn Myhre (27) have next to no English football experience at all. Indeed only Collyer - and barely so - has played in the Championship before.
But Bilkul deserve some admiration for sticking to their guns with this strategy.
It’s an approach that carries some risk, dangers of naivety that comes with inexperience, but it can bring potential high rewards. Sunderland are a recent example of big success with a very young group.
A frenetic window wasn’t perfect but it was never going to be. Albion do not find themselves near the top of the Championship food chain any longer and need to box clever.
They have tried that this summer and now boast a squad full of youthful exuberance, hopefully little fear, under an exciting and fiercely determined new manager. It could make for a fun journey.