Low-key Bilkul summer business a nod to West Brom future

Sales of high-profile players Tom Fellows and Darnell Furlong and homegrown talents like Caleb Taylor were balanced with the late arrivals of Alfie Gilchrist, Chris Mepham, Charlie Taylor and Sammy Iling-Junior.

In total there were nine new recruits at The Hawthorns this summer and 11 senior exits.

Most considered it an impressive window of business by owners Bilkul - though in reality it is unwise to make assessments at this stage, just five matches into a league season.

Albion's ownership were not just busy working on Ryan Mason's first-team squad during the close-season. They handed the club's iconic stadium a much-needed spruce-up for its 125th anniversary year, which was to the tune of a significant six-figure fee.

But there was also lower-profile business in the form of securing the next few years of development in some of the club's finest prospects.

There has been comment at head coach Mason's move to use two goalkeepers on his substitutes bench in the last two games. Speaking in today's Express & Star, Mason said that was to protect young players from premature calls to first team duty, adding youngsters must earn the right.

The new boss - so long a youth coach at Tottenham - has stressed his admiration and acknowledgement of the importance of the academy. He has already handed right-back Alex Williams, 20, a senior debut. Others have caught the eye and earned a place in the matchday squad.

And the club's board, with strategy led by sporting director Andrew Nestor, have moved to ensure the next wave of promising talent to not have heads turned from elsewhere, as has been the pattern in recent years.

Ollie Bostock, Cole Deeming and Harry Whitwell have all signed new contracts this summer.

They did so largely to little fanfare, but all three have the potential to break into the first-team squad in the next couple of years.

The academy is essential to Albion. Struct and restrictive financial regulations mean it has never been more important that the club's academy continues to produce its own talent.

The sales of Fellows (£10million), Taylor (£2.5m) and Alex Palmer (up to £4m) prove the importance of giving a chance to your own. Not all will reach the heights of Fellows, but just one such sale can help the academy produce more youngsters for several years.

In Wales youth international winger Bostock, 18, and midfielders Whitwell, 19, and Deeming, 18, there are a trio who can bridge the gap.

If any head coach is likely to hand them an opportunity then it will be Mason, himself a product of an academy, with Spurs, where he cut his teeth in coaching.

The trio all signed new terms until the summer of 2027, offering them stability and time to develop and mature without fear of "what's next?"

For Whitwell, who has been in the first-team picture for some time, a first loan away from Albion with Forest Green Rovers can be a useful next step.

Deeming and Bostock have both been on the bench in the Championship and are vital for Mason's training sessions. Should they impress they will continue being rewarded on a matchday. Otherwise they, like Whitwell before them, will continue to strengthen under new under-21s boss Leigh Downing and be ready for a future loan.

Work was done, too, within the Richard Stevens-led academy to recruit talent including attackers Torin Nteje, 19, and Jack Bray, 18, from Peterborough United and Harrogate Town respectively.

Baggies supporters were impressed by the calibre and value in the new faces brought to the club under Nestor, Ian Pearce and co. this summer.

Some of the shrewdest work, however, could be safeguarding the immediate future of the next wave of Hawthorns talent.