Express & Star

Ally Robertson: Big summer for West Brom as Carlos Corberan starts his rebuild

We were beaten by much the better side in the play-offs against Southampton – and now this summer ahead is the biggest one for us in some time. We’ve got to get it right.

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Mikey Johnston was a big success during his loan spell and the Baggies will be looking for more temporary deals (Getty)

I’m a little bit concerned now by how many lads have left and more might leave, and how much money have we got to bring any into us?

This will provide Carlos Corberan his biggest opportunity to build his squad because up to now he hasn’t had to buy anybody.

Now we’ve got to take time to build the club completely. That takes time, though. I’d hoped we could do better in the play-offs for more cash to buy some players or go for two or three better loans.

We’ve offered new deals to Cedric Kipre, Alex Mowatt and Kyle Bartley, three of our better performers this season, and it would be great if we could keep them. But it’s about what we can afford. Ideally we can keep the players the head coach wants and we can build around that.

I would like to keep them if we can make it work in our wage structure. Seven players were released and to no surprise. We’ll be looking for younger players to make the squad last longer.

With loan deals, as we saw with Mikey Johnston from Celtic in January and we’ve seen over the years at The Hawthorns, two or three loans can change your whole team.