Dan's the man to shape the Baggies

Technical and Sporting Director Dan Ashworth cherishes his anonymity and believes it to be a genuine advantage as he goes about his business in the ferociously-competitive world of player recruitment.

But Albion chairman Peace is increasingly keen to promote Ashton's role in providing Di Matteo with the players the Baggies must smuggle out from under the gaze of their rivals to furnish a team capable of staying in the top flight.

That remains Albion's long-term quest but, as yesterday's accounts revealed and Peace today confirms, they are back to the baseline in terms of transfer funds.

"We've always spent money – even though people don't believe us!" Peace says with a laugh.

"We've always spent it. We effectively spent the parachutes last summer so we are fully invested which is why we needed to sell to buy.

"The goal over time is still to try to establish ourselves in the Premier League and the way to achieve that is to be more sensible and more intelligent with the way we spend the money."

So over to you, Dan. It is Ashworth's task to organise the scouting and collate the information that comes in from a re-organised network set up 20 months ago in which Tony Spearing, the European scouting head, and Stuart White (UK) play pivotal roles.

It has always been Peace's vision – one which led to conflict with his first manager Gary Megson – that his manager would have a range of options for any particular position readily available to him at any given moment.

It is a strategy Tony Mowbray and now "RDM" have accepted but as Albion head towards 2010 with promotion their focus but the more distant challenge of ending their yo-yo existence also in the mix, never have the demands on Ashworth and his operatives been greater.

In short, if he's got any more Gonzalo Jara's up their sleeve, now would be a good time to nab them.

"Jara came from an Under 23 tournament in France we scouted," explains Ashton as he offered an insight into the calculations constantly effecting his job. "And that's opened up other avenues for us.

"The South American market is one we may look to tap into in future. We've looked closely at statistics of players who are likely to deal with the demands of English football.

"We have to shop within our means. Brazilians and Argentinians, once they get the required number of caps to get work permits, tend to be very expensive and go to top six Premier League sides.

"We have got to work with players who are accessible to EU passports or players who don't fall out of our price range. For example, Juan Carlos Menseguez had an Italian passport for instance. You go back a few years. A lot of players in USA have Polish, Irish or Italian immigrants. Argentinians have a lot of Italian and Spanish, Brazilians perhaps Portuguese.

"Menseguez was known to us because he'd played in Germany. We normally wouldn't look in a country where he'd be too expensive but he had an Italia passport, played for Wolfsburg in Germany so we knew he was a viable target.

"We never know which league we're going to be in so we plan for two eventualities. We have different options and different leagues. But our main aim is to seek out players who can make the step up."

Ashworth's low profile in conducting his own intelligence missions is well preserved despite Peace's enthusiasm for him to step further into the public domain.

You will find mayors, musicians, policemen and teachers named Dan Ashworth on a Google image search – but no pictures of the man playing such a crucial role in the Baggies development. There are barely any more words about him either, something the man himself relishes.

"I love going to games and no-one has a clue who I am," he offers as an aside.

But with Albion having thrown the kitchen sink – financially speaking – at the Mowbray Formula and ending up back in the Championship, the pressure on Ashworth to dig out some more diamonds is clear.

Peace has great faith in both the system and the man he has appointed to head it up as he reviews last season's relegation which followed the biggest summer spending programme in the club's history.

"We are relatively prudent but then again all the money is gone from last season," says the Hawthorns owner. "There was £48m which went straight through and we're £500,000 better off at the end. We are right at the limit, right on the margin and without any big benefactor we are where we are. We can't do any more and it's now just a question of how wisely can we spend or invest the money we get in, which is where Dan comes in on the player recruitment side.

"We have oscillated between the two levels for the last few years for the last seven or eight years but now it's about how we spend the resources because clearly the gap is getting bigger.

"We can't do what the big clubs do but that is part of the challenge for the board and for Dan. It's a very demanding challenge but hopefully one we can meet over time."