West Brom's Slaven Bilic aiming to keep hold of main men
Albion boss Slaven Bilic’s priority is keeping hold of his star players in January – but has not ruled out dipping his toe in the transfer window.
The Baggies are top of the Championship going into today’s game with Brentford.
And for Bilic, the priority is keeping his current crop together, rather than recruiting.
Asked whether keeping hold of his key performer would be his main aim in the transfer window, Bilic stated: “Exactly. That is our first thing to do. Hopefully we will.”
One current star who could leave The Hawthorns is attacking midfielder Grady Diangana. His season-long loan deal from West Ham has a recall clause in it.
But one of their other loan players is going nowhere.
Matheus Pereira is set to make his loan move from Sporting Lisbon a permanent one at some stage and that could be sooner, rather than later.
The Express & Star revealed in October that Albion have the right to sign the player at £8.25m at any time.
But as well as agreeing a future fee with Lisbon, Albion have also agreed personal terms with Pereira should his loan move be made permanent.
And when asked about his aims for the transfer window, Bilic said: “Not a lot. There is always room to improve any team.
“January is not ideal but it is possible. We are not panicking. We have a situation as you know with some players who are on-loan and all of that.
“Also we have some of our players out on-loan, we will see.
“If something appears that is really good for us, then we will be active.”
