West Bromwich Albion chief Dan Ashworth feels their summer signings have proved themselves.

Ashworth says management are pleased with their new players this season.

"As I said back in September, the good thing about the last window is that we managed to do quite a lot of our business early," reflected Ashworth with the Albion website.

"That's because we had the luxury of knowing in April what league we were going to be in.

"Roy, along with the coaching staff and I, identified areas that we needed to improve and we made no secret of the fact we wanted to bring in one more in August, should the right one have become available towards deadline day.

"We will probably pick that same sort of thing up in January. But, in the main, the ones that have come in have done really well. Some of them, like Gareth and Billy, were unknowns in the Barclays Premier League.

"Touch wood, Gareth has done really well and Billy has stepped in and looked like he can handle the Premier League too.

"Craig was also a bit of a bonus for us because he had been out on loan at Rochdale. I know there was a bit of concern among supporters after the window had closed about us not strengthening the defence enough.

"But with Billy and Gareth really stepping up to the plate, and Craig looking like he has developed, I think things have worked out.

"We've already kept more clean sheets this year than we did during the whole of last season so I think we were reasonably happy with what happened during the last window."