Tony Pulis keen to lower the average age of West Brom's squad

The Baggies regularly field the oldest team in the Premier League and the starting XI’s average age has been over 30 more often than not this campaign.

Although Pulis and the club’s medical staff are proud of the players’ fitness levels, the team’s form has dipped towards the end of the season just like it did last year as the combination of having a small squad and a whole raft of players over 30 starts to take its toll.

The average age in the Premier League is 27.4 and Pulis is keen to get Albion’s squad closer to that figure.

“I think if you look at our squad and look at the numbers and the ages of the players, we are a little bit short in respect of a middle group,” he said.

“We’ve got four or five young players who hopefully will get a chance over the four or five games to play some time.

“But over that, there’s not the number of 20-year-olds or early 20s, 23s and 24s that you’d want at the football club.

“We’ve got to try to find players now of that age to fill the squad and players of that ability to improve the group.”

Pulis has been trying to address this problem for the past 12 months. Although it has been difficult to buy players between 20 and 24, his recent signings have all been between 25 and 30.

Matt Phillips was 25 when he was signed last summer, although he turned 26 in March. Nacer Chadli had just turned 27 when he arrived, the same age as Jake Livermore and Hal Robson-Kanu. Allan Nyom is one year older at 28, although the full-back turns 29 in a week’s time.

Despite the recent poor run of form, Pulis’s position at the club is stable after a successful season and the Welshman is trying to plan long-term.

However, he has looked at players in their 30s, such as John Terry, and wouldn’t rule out signing a player in that age bracket provided it was the right fit.

“The most important thing is that at the top level, you’re always trying to get that top player in that’s a little bit better than what you’ve got, again and again,” he said.

Last summer, Albion struggled to land their top targets for a number of reasons but on several occasions they were priced out of the market.

The Baggies withdrew their interest in Islam Slimani around the £17m mark before he went to Leicester for £30m, and they backed out of a deal for William Carvalho when Sporting Lisbon asked for too much.

“There’s never a sense of understanding what you’ve got, the material you’ve got to work with and the amount of material you’ve got to work with,” said Pulis.“That’s never taken into account. If you lose games, you lose games. No one ever looks at the situation, analyses it and takes it to that depth.”