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Slaven Bilic: West Brom need signings

Slaven Bilic admitted Albion need new signings after their winless run in the Championship stretched to six matches following a home defeat to Stoke.

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Slaven Bilic head coach / manager of West Bromwich Albion is interviewed for West Bromwich Albion / WBA Television / TV after the match having lost 0-1. (AMA)

A solitary goal from Tyrese Campbell was enough to see the Potters snatch victory at The Hawthorns tonight.

On what was a hugely frustrating evening for Bilic’s side, Stoke arrived with a game plan and stuck to it with the Baggies creating very little in front of goal.

Speaking post-match, Bilic described Albion’s winless run as a mini-crisis And he admitted new recruits would help refresh the team.

“We are trying - we can only hope that we are going to do it,” Bilic said when asked about new signings.

“Do we need them, yes we need them. Every team needs them.

“If it’s going to happen great but even if it doesn’t happen it’s game on.

“New faces would help, definitely, and every team needs them, especially in this situation, but I don’t expect them to change it.

“We have players who have put us in the situation to have a gap at the top of the table.

“These players are the key. New players are not the key. These players are the key and we have it.

“There is no time to panic and moan but there is also no time to say ‘bad day at the office’. No.

“It is somewhere in between that so work hard, commit yourself and embrace this challenge.”

Bilic admitted his side lacked the quality needed to beat Stoke.

“It was a big chance to get three points but we didn’t,” he continued.

The guys gave everything in terms of effort, we tried but simply we have to admit that the quality wasn’t there.

“In the first half we were nervy, and there wasn’t enough bravery or confidence to hurt them. “We played either long, or in front of them. Second half we improved, but we’ve lost a bit of quality recently.

“When you have that amount of possession, and I think we have the highest number of crosses, and you have 16 shots but two on target, that was basically a lack of quality.

“We stopped them creating in the second half, but apart from the crosses I don’t remember any clear cut chances.

“We were relying on crosses and shots from the edge of the box. They weren’t good enough.”

Albion lost Grady Diangana just three minutes into the clash against Stoke with the winger suffering a recurrence of hamstring injury that prevented him from starting the previous six games.

But Bilic said it was too early to assess the extent of the injury.

"I don’t know - it’s the same leg, the same leg," he added.

"It’s very strange because he is not like that.

"It’s not like we pushed him to come back - we wanted to be double safe with him.

"He played 30 minutes at Charlton."