West Brom CEO Ron Gourlay re-iterates confidence in £4.95m owner loan being returned

Earlier this year, Lai explained how he had taken the loan out of the club to Wisdom Smart Corporation Limited, a related party to Lai.

He said it will be paid back by the end of this year - and Gourlay was quizzed on the issue again as he spoke alongside Carlos Corberan with Albion's new head coach at his unveiling.

On the loan and funds being available to Corberan for the January transfer he said: "When I took over the role, I found out at that time. It is something I have picked up I have made it clear I believe that will happen.

"We have a big squad, and if he needs to make some changes then we have to support him, that could be funds made available and also with players maybe having to go."

Gourlay has come in for criticism from some supporters for a lack of communication with supporters over recent months - and he was asked about the topic at The Hawthorns on Thursday.

He added: "What I will say I have been talking to the fans and fan meetings and have met shareholders, what I wanted to do is we need to get stability. A major problem we have at this club is changing our managers too regularly."

On the appointment of Corberan, who was one of a number of candidates Gourlay and the club looked at during the recruitment process, the chief executive stated he was the outstanding candidate and the standard of candidates was 'very, very high'.

He added: "We considered quite a number and we moved the process down to the top three, Carlos was the outstanding candidate in that top three, but the standard of the candidates was very, very good, and we wanted to get the right man. It is important we got this right.

"He was on the radar from the start and when we first met he was impressive. As we went through the first and second week and through the process he became the outstanding candidate.

"The passion and energy from day one was immense, he is a top, top coach, tactically he has the passion and energy and belief, we talked about the current squad a lot and it is all about belief and confidence and I recommended to the board he was the right person to take us out of a very difficult place."