Shilen Patel will not be making assumptions when planning for West Brom's future

Patel, whose takeover from Guochuan Lai was completed last month, admitted Albion must plan for the next three to five years with the mindset of remaining a Championship club.

The chairman acknowledged that the club’s prospect could clearly change were Carlos Corberan able to secure a Premier League return, which the new ownership have stated is a main target. Albion sit fifth in the second tier and are on course for a play-off place.

“All of those things are in continuous formation, but we understand the challenges and probabilities related to promotion,” Patel told BBC Radio WM in an interview available at 7pm this evening.

“When I was looking at this club, the biggest mistake you could make with any club in the Championship is to just assume ‘oh next year we will be in the Premier League’. You can’t do that.

“It was important for us to understand what the next three to five years look like if it doesn’t happen. If it does happen you have a lot more options and possibilities available, your priorities can change a little bit.

“But we need to have a vision for how we sustain and remain as one of the top quartile of clubs in this league for as long as we’re in this league. If we can do that we’ll get an annual opportunity to get to the next level.

“I think our goal operationally and strategically is to make sure we can manage under the rules, constraints and realities of the Championship. We hope we don’t have to worry about that as early as next year but our whole plan revolves around the fact we can’t assume we’re going to be a Premier League team in a specific timeframe.”

Regardless of the ownership situation, Albion are required by new EFL rules to lower their wage bill this summer. Multiple first-team squad members are out of contract.

Patel has revealed his decision to take on the existing MSD Holdings loan – two sums totalling £28million were lent to the club from the US firm to help running costs – rather than immediately pay off all debts.

The US investor stated that decision is the one that makes sense, with no benefit of an immediate repayment. He said: “(It’s) The latter (a sensible business decision) – having worked with many capital structures in my life and career, it’s quite simple.

“It’s what makes the most sense at the time, with the MSD loan, the way it’s structured, there’s no specific benefit in paying it off on day one, in fact it’s inefficient.

“There will be a time to address the loan, but there was no benefit to make it a priority coming in.”