It seems this week we've been linked with every striker currently not playing first-team football in Germany, France or Portugal!
While it's always nice to be linked to international players, and the club even discussing loan deals with them, it still doesn't cover over the cracks of our horrendous transfer policy and dealings in the summer. With our great leader previously stating on the record that 'Albion don't do business in January', the question surely should be why the likes of Jay Simpson, Marc Antonie-Fortune and Ariza Makukula were not pursued in the summer?
We now know that a deal for Frazier Campbell fell through at the last minute but was it a case of Albion not identifying their targets earlier or simply putting faith in Moore, Bednar, Miller and Beattie to succeed against some of the best defenders in the world? A decision, if true, which seems even the more mystifying taking into account a record of 14 Premiership goals between the four of them before the season kicked off - and all of those for Luke Moore during his time in Witton.
At this time of year the transfer speculation is a welcome distraction away from matters on the pitch. Although Mowbray called for 'no more hard luck stories' before the villa game it was a predictable tale for Baggies fans on Saturday afternoon. After enjoying large spells of the possession against Villa defensive frailties again came back to haunt us with two terrible goals conceded. While the second-half was a vast improvement and the performance of Jay Simpson a glimmer of hope, we'll still have to perform better over 90 minutes to take anything from Saturday's six-pointer against Middlesbrough. By that time hopefully Peace will have done some business in January!