West Brom will delve into the loan market again this summer

The Baggies brought in seven players in total on loan last season, including big Hawthorns hits Dwight Gayle and Harvey Barnes.

EFL clubs are allowed a maximum of eight loanees in total and five in any given matchday squad and Dowling is planning to exploit the rule again.

Albion are bringing in Filip Krovinovic on loan from Benfica with the Croatian midfielder expected to sign this week.

The Baggies are paying the Portuguese club around £300,000 for his services this season, but he won’t be the last loanee through the door.

“In the Championship, the rules allow you to have five loan players in your match day squad,” said Dowling. “We’d be silly if we don’t utilise it.

“It’s about getting the right ones to buy into the club.

"Personality wise we were lucky with the loan players we got last year, they moved their families to the area, they settled in, they didn’t live in hotels. You thought they’d been here years.

“That’s important, a lot of them turn up thinking we’re only here for six months and don’t really care what’s going on.

"We will look at it again, because we can have five of them.”

Gayle finished the season as top scorer with 24 goals while Barnes was a huge hit in the first half of the campaign before his January recall tempered Albion’s promotion chances.

But the Baggies also enjoyed successful loan spells from Mason Holgate and Stefan Johansen in the second half of the season.

Tosin Adarabioyo provided cover across the back four, but Jefferson Montero and Jacob Murphy struggled to make the desired impact.

The Baggies only dealt in domestic signings last summer, but they are targeting the foreign market this time around.

“We want to go back to what West Brom were really good at a few years ago,” said Dowling.

“Unearthing a few gems people weren’t aware of, didn’t cost six, seven or eight million pounds but turned out to be really good players.

“Yes, there will be money to spend but that will increase if we sell anybody.”