Shilen Patel on West Brom's football structure and unlocking 'high potential'

US investor Patel’s Bilkul Football last month completed a takeover of the club from Guochuan Lai in a deal of around £60million.

Patel joins managing director Mark Miles on the club’s board, though it remains to be seen how the chairman decides to structure the hierarchy of the Bilkul Football group. The Florida businessman stressed he aims to “expand the reach and possibilities” of Albion.

Head coach Carlos Corberan currently operates with head of football operations Ian Pearce, who was formerly the club’s head of recruitment. Patel explained he is not looking to introduce new personnel into the running of the club.

“I’ve been fortunate to build relationships with people who are tightly-woven into this sport around the world,” Patel told BBC Radio WM in reference to his previous target to invest in global football academies.

“There’s a great group of people to work with here at the club, that was a great attraction to it, but I think my goal is to expand the reach and the possibilities of the club, that does require to work with more stakeholders and more people.

“There will always be the need and benefit from building and expanding my team, but I don’t have a list of people I’m waiting to shovel into the club or anything like that.

“We start with understanding what we have, seeing the outcomes of this season, we have areas we want to prioritise in terms of building up, that’s got to be the case of any club that’s had to worry about survival for any period of time.

“There’s got to be opportunities you aren’t looking at because you can’t justify them, so I think there are going to be opportunities to add to what we’ve got here.”

The new owner plans another return to take in at least another couple of games before the end of the season. He stressed a vision of “unlocking players with a high potential” as Albion’s route to success in the coming years.

“When we think about how we want this project to go, it’s really about finding and unlocking the best in players that have high potential and pairing that with quality veterans,” he said. “In the time with him (Corberan) I’ve been able to see he has a way of doing both things. There is no decision that can have such a variance in outcome than the hiring of a manager, there are so many unknowns.

“Having an individual in place – that’s not a decision I have to face – that’s incredible. When you ask what am I going to worry about? How bad can it get? I think that a manager like Carlos allows you to think about the best outcomes rather than worrying about what’s next and do we have the right one.”

BBC Radio WM's interview with Patel can be heard in full at 7pm on air on Wednesday.