NIGEL Clough says that it might take the rest of August to get his squad fully ready for the season ahead.
The Albion manager wants to bring in new faces to give his squad more depth and, after a frustrating pre-season of niggly injuries, players who have had a broken start to the campaign need time to get up to speed.
He said: “We think it will be the end of August before we have a settled squad. We have injuries that means some people have missed pre-season and are a little bit behind.”
Clough says that fans may have to be patient in terms of new faces and there may not be any movement before the permanent transfer window closes on Thursday.
He said: “It is difficult getting permanents in. I think our business will be in loans between now and the end of the month. We have another three or four weeks to do that and we will keep asking questions about whether we can have this player or that player as we have been doing over the last few weeks.
“But we are pretty happy with the team that finished the match on Saturday.”
Matty Lund departed the club on Friday and Clough says that “frees up a space and a wage”.
“We didn’t have enough time to get someone in before Saturday’s game but we will pursue that again this week.”