Phase One at Swansea for West Brom boss

Head coach Alan Irvine completes 'phase one' of his West Brom mission tomorrow against another of the Premier League's wannabes.

Yet the Baggies boss is reluctant to make too many comparisons between his side and Garry Monk's Swansea, who host Albion at the Liberty Stadium.

Because as Irvine tries to impose his ideas on his rebuilt side, Monk is building on some long-established foundations in South Wales.

In one corner tomorrow for the final game before the season's first international break is a Swansea side well versed in the ways Monk is keen to continue.

In the other is a Baggies outfit still finding its feet and its fitness under Irvine, who admits he is still deciding over his favoured line-up as he prepares for the third league game of the season.

"It's still got to gel," admitted Irvine, who could be without injured left-back Sebastien Pocognoli tomorrow.

"The ideal situation would have been to have all our players available from day one of pre-season to try different partnerships, styles and systems.

"But in pre-season it ended up with me having 11 fit players to choose from.

"But we will have more alternatives and options in the coming weeks.

"We've had a decent start but we have had to build a new squad and that takes time.

"It takes even more time when you haven't got them all together from the start and many of our players are still trying to do a pre-season at this moment in time.

"That means they're not ready for inclusion in the squad and they haven't been on the training ground with the rest of the players to a large extent.

"It was maybe only 10 days before the first game of the season that I felt we were getting some proper work done and we're still adding players to that.

"There are new players coming in who need to settle in and get to know people and know the area, let alone settle as part of the team.

"So it's difficult but our performances and results have been encouraging so far and hopefully we can build on that.

"It will vary from individual to individual and we have players who are all at different stages in terms of their readiness to play.

"It's going to take a bit of time but I certainly feel like after the end of the international break we will be in a better position but for some lads it's going to take longer than others."

With Pocognoli a major doubt tomorrow, Irvine could hand a first Premier League start to Australia international Jason Davidson, who is playing catch-up himself after a disrupted pre-season, but who netted the decisive spot-kick in Albion's penalty shoot-out win over Oxford United in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday.

Victor Anichebe should be fit despite limping off at Southampton last weekend but James Morrison is probably fit enough only for substitute duties while Joleon Lescott, Georgios Samaras and Silvestre Varela are all too far behind in terms of fitness to take part.

So Irvine will again look to make the best of a patched-up squad against a Swans side he believes are at a far more advanced stage of their development.

"Garry's had a more settled group of players and a group who know the way they play," said Irvine. "They have a very clear playing style and philosophy laid down over a number of years and Garry was part of that.

"Very sensibly he's not come in and changed that.

It will be a tough game for us but hopefully a tough game for them too."