West Brom chairman Peace won't release funds for January market

West Brom chairman Jeremy Peace says manager Tony Mowbray must fund his own January signings.

“I have said year after year that what we try to do here is equip ourselves for the full season in the summer,” Peace told the Birmingham Mail.

“We have always said January is just for ‘topping up’ because of injuries – like Ishmael Miller – or for players who might be nearing suspension.

“There might be one or two weaknesses within the squad that become apparent and that we need to tweak.

“A full-scale buying operation in January is always very difficult because prices tend to get inflated.

“Against that backdrop, our spending on transfers in the summer window was in the top half of the Premier League. We spent comparably with Stoke and we certainly spent a lot more than Hull.

“Come January, the manager has already set out on many occasions what his thoughts are with regards to topping up with loans, which I think is a very sensible course of action, and we also have to ensure that we get the right quality of player here.

“We have talked about evolving and strengthening the squad, which is what we want to do to give us an improvement in our squad strength for the second half of the season.

“We had a player sale lined up, which would have had a considerable impact on our cashflow and it didn’t happen.

“There is no white flag here and we will definitely try to improve the squad where we can.”