Tony Pulis sure he will land West Brom targets

The Baggies boss has been given an extra year at The Hawthorns by owner Guochuan Lai and chairman John Williams after guiding the club to a top-half finish last season.

And the head coach agreed to the extension, which leaves him contracted until the summer of 2019, after receiving assurances over Lai’s investment.

“Over the next couple of weeks, hopefully that will be shown even more by the players we bring in,” said Pulis. “I've got full confidence that we can bring in the players we need.

“John is working tirelessly to get those deals over the line, because we need them.

"Supporters aren't stupid – they look at our squad and see how thin we are. They're very keen for us to bring players and we're working very hard to do that.”

Although Pulis admitted that Lai wanted to grow the club gradually, when he was asked if the owner had promised to spend, Pulis said: “The investment has always been there.

“They want to run the club the way it's being run – they want to make money every year, or to break even every year.

"There's nothing wrong with that, especially when you consider the enormous amounts of money that go into the football club.

“I went over there this summer and spent time with them. They are very enthusiastic and they see it the same way as us.

"They want stability and the club to be moved on. We know we can’t do it in great strides we have to do it slowly.”

But Pulis starts the season with just 13 senior outfield players available. He is acutely aware of the immediate need for bodies but has been left frustrated so far after several deals have stalled towards the end of negotiations.

“They've been close for about three or four weeks but they haven't got over the line,” he said. “That's frustrating. We'd love to have been in a position where we've got our targets earlier.”

One of those deals has been for defender Ben Gibson, but Pulis hasn’t accepted defeat in his long-running pursuit for the Middlesbrough centre-back.

“I haven't accepted anything with Gibson,” he said. “If we're doing business with Middlesbrough we'll do it through those channels.”