January transfer window: West Brom's need for a striker

Jonny Drury and Lewis Cox answer all your questions on a mailbag episode of the Baggies Broadcast

Transcript

00:00Is a striker in January a priority? Madger and Graham look close to burnout. Cole clearly

00:05isn't fancy. DK, who knows when he'll be back and how long he will last. I wrote a piece

00:11earlier this week saying a midfielder needs to be high up on the list, but I think a striker

00:16needs to be it. I think if Albion are going to challenge for the play-offs, a striker

00:20for me, someone else not to challenge, perhaps just to give them a rest, is a priority. But

00:27you get to January, you're either getting the players that other clubs don't want, or

00:32if you want a top-draw striker, you are going to have to pay through the nose for it.

00:37Yeah, Albion bought one in last January, didn't they? Young Martial. Was that January? Yeah,

00:44from West Ham. Probably the less said about that, the better, I think it's fair to say.

00:52And that was one, a young loan with as good an under-21 record as you're going to see.

01:05There's a question mark around January and the striking situation, and there's a question

01:11mark next to the name of Daryl DK. That is the estimated return period, but how much

01:21weight can we put into that? Very little, realistically. He's got to train late December,

01:27then got to prove he's ready for the bench or whatever in January. So how much stock

01:35do they put in him? It does interest me, does Albion sort of forward business, any forward

01:40business in January, is it DK dependent? Now, everyone listening to this will be screaming

01:46at me saying, no, don't be an idiot, you know, and don't put any sort of hope or optimism

01:53in DK's return, which is a horrible thing to say. But yeah, it's just the way things

01:58have gone for the poor lad, isn't it? But again, going back to what I said about Cole

02:04in the last step, he's clearly, to me, sort of not been fancied. So then that leaves Madja

02:13Grant and DK, if and when fit. I suppose, and Corbijn said this to me recently, he categorised

02:25John Swift as a deep-lying forward option in the front two. Now, again, I'm not sure

02:31about that, and I know no one listening to this will want to consider that, but just

02:36saying that's probably part of the club coaching staff's thinking. As a body, Swift is someone

02:42that could play just behind Grant, just behind Madja, if one of them's out.

02:49Would I want to get one? Look, if it's possible and feasible, there's a lot of ifs, buts,

02:55uncertainties here, isn't there? But one thing I'm pretty clear about is that the ownership,

03:03Andrew Nesta involved there, Ian Pearce, obviously, overseas recruitment, will be aware that there's

03:11stuff to address.