Tony Pulis flying out to China to discuss West Brom budget with owner Guochuan Lai

The head coach will be joined in the southern city of Guangzhou by chairman John Williams, chief executive Martin Goodman, and director of football administration Richard Garlick, although technical director Nick Hammond is not attending.

Pulis and the board are leaving the day after Albion’s season finishes and will return just two days later on Wednesday knowing what funds Lai has promised them for his first full summer in charge.

“We won't know until I come back from China what the budget exactly is," said Pulis. “We’ll analyse the season and the way they see the club pushing on and going forward.

“We will go into detail over a lot of things and it will be nice to see what his views are.

“John will be on the plane with Richard and Martin as well. We'll sit down and have that meeting and we'll take it from there. We'll know where we are then.”

Albion spent £10million on Jake Livermore in January, the first full window of the new regime, but Pulis admitted he didn’t know exactly how much would be made available this summer.

And the Baggies boss, who wants to sign three or four first-team players during the window, is looking forward to getting to know Lai a bit better.

“It’s going to be the first time I’ve met him on terms where we can sit down and have a cup of tea together and be by ourselves,” he said. “So it will be interesting.

“Every time he’s come over he’s been very kind and nice but there’s been an entourage of people around. So it will be nice to meet him as a human being, one on one.

“John has more time with Mr Lai than I do so it’s an opportunity to have a couple of days and sit down and talk in a more thorough manner about the football club and the future.”

The summer budget won’t be the only item on the agenda, with Pulis keen to talk about the long-term development of what happens behind the scenes.

Albion are spending £250,000 revamping the interior of the training ground this summer and, subject to planning permission, will be expanding the building in 2018.

Goodman and Garlick will discuss the club's future commercial strategy with Lai and Pulis is also keen to talk about ways the club’s academy system can be improved.

“It’s not just about the spending of money,” he said. “It’s the structure of the club and the way he sees it developing over a period of time.

“That’s very important for everybody. Front of house is the most important thing about a football club.

“But being in the Premier League gives you the chance to improve other things and we have to talk about that.

“I’ve mentioned the academy and we have to talk about that as well.

“How do we get those players from 17 or 18 to play men’s football and get more prepared for the chances that, if they’re good enough, they will get if I’m manager.”