Albion Outlook: West Brom fans have their say on Lai and the start of the season

Sarah Rudge, 24, Wolverhampton

Excitement and negativity is building with the new season just around the corner. With Bournemouth up first, some supporters are worried that we are not well equipped in terms of the amount of players we have at our disposal.

The Cherries are more of a tough test than it may seem with striker Jermain Defoe now among their ranks. Despite his age he is still very dangerous in front of goal and our new centre-back Ahmed Hegazi will certainly need to be on the top of his game to stop him finding the scoresheet.

Hearing that the players with injuries and niggles seem to be nearing fitness ready for Saturday is important with our squad still light in many areas.

The return of Gareth McAuley is particularly significant as his partnership with Jonny Evans is vital to our defence and is a big reason why our goals against ratio is so good. James Morrison is also expected to be in training imminently which boosts our attacking options. Despite the negativity being bandied around, let’s hope for a positive start!

Lee Smith, 42, Michigan, USA

It’s been 12 months since Guochuan Lai purchased his majority shareholding stake from Jeremy Peace. Any acquisition is fraught with risk and uncertainty. New ownership usually means new people, new culture, new strategy, a new operating model.

Therefore, 12 months on, I have to say I’ve been relatively impressed with just how seamless this transition has gone. We were able to finish 10th in the Premier league and have improved the squad with the signings of Jake Livermore, Nacer Chadli and Jay Rodriguez. We should be thankful for all this, just ask our neighbours.

I believe major factors in this smooth integration have been Peace carefully selecting not only a pragmatic businessman to buy his stake, but putting a transition plan in place that included the recruitment of John Williams as chairman.

Peace also knew we could never compete with the big teams when it came to buying players so invested in infrastructure like the academy, sports science facility, training ground and football analysts in order to try and level the playing field from a massively dis-advantaged financial position. It worked.

Would we like to have seen more transfer activity so far this summer, sure we would, don’t we say the same thing every year about this very time. I would hope that before the end of the window we’re able to bring in three or four more new additions that further strengthen our squad. We need to continue our gradual improvement and the remaining three weeks are going to give us a strong indication of whether we’re on track.

Alistair Jones, 40, Sedgley

So we are a year into the bright new dawn of our club being taken over by a Far East consortium headed by Guochuan Lai.

I ask myself this question, what has changed? Well, we seem to have managed to have been the only club that has been recently taken over by businesses from the Far East that seem to be more frugal with their funds than its predecessors.

I believe if you stand still in this league you are risking going backwards very quickly. Look at our peers, even clubs who are below us in the food chain.

At least they are having a go. Granted, they are paying over the odds, but we simply have got to move with the times, haggling over £1m for two weeks doesn’t help anyone.

It’s getting to the point where we are well short.

Look at the bench against Deportivo La Coruna, Robson-Kanu and Myhill aside, every one were academy graduates.

I get we need to make sure we get value for money, but is Mr Lai and his board willing to put at risk his £175 million investment, and all the exposure that our Premier League status brings in his homeland by not investing in our playing staff?

If you want to write for Albion Outlook, e-mail Baggies reporter Matt Wilson at matt.wilson@expressandstar.co.uk