Comment: It's in Guochuan Lai's interest to help out West Brom boss Alan Pardew this month

Albion's Chinese owner wanted an affordable mid-table side who could guarantee Premier League status, and forked out more than £175m for the club for that exact reason.

Lai uses the West Bromwich Albion and Premier League brands to win lucrative eco-town development contracts in China and already has six in the pipeline.

His whole model requires Albion to be in the top tier, so the last thing he wants is his club to drift into mid-table obscurity in the Championship.

Seventeen months after the takeover, Albion find themselves fighting for survival, four points adrift with Tony Pulis rightly cast aside and uncertainty clouding the future of the club.

Relegation will not go down well in China, but Lai himself can help.

Albion's new owner never promised to invest millions of pounds into his new club, from the outset he vowed to continue former owner Jeremy Peace's 'spend-what-we-earn' model.

But with the team's Premier League status at risk, it would be in his interest to dip his hand in his pocket this January.

A couple of new faces could be the difference between securing Premier League status, and the pot of television cash that comes with it, or relegation down to the Championship and the financial implications that has.

Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules allow clubs to operate with a 30million Euro loss (£26.5m) over a three-year period.

Peace left the Baggies debt-free and in his final season in charge, the 2015/16 season, the Baggies made pre-tax profits of £4.8m.

Although last season's financial figures are not yet out, the club are still likely to have some room to manoeuvre this season.

Pardew could use some extra cash to help buy a striker and an attacking midfielder, because 16 goals from 22 league games is not a good enough ratio to stay up.

There is a separate issue that Albion's wage bill is nearing its limit under short term cost control rules.

Premier League clubs are only allowed to increase their player wages by £7million each season and after buying six new players in the summer, the Baggies do not have much wiggle room left.

However, instead of scrabbling around in the loan market for a striker, a helping hand from Lai could give Pardew the cash he needs to buy a player capable of keeping them up.

Now the Baggies sit second-bottom and four points adrift, it's in his interest to secure his initial investment for another season at least.