West Bromwich Albion's Transfer Moves: Collyer and Tunde Join
James Morrison is pushing. The West Bromwich Albion head coach wants more through the door before the window shuts – and he’s close to landing a familiar face from Old Trafford.
The Championship club are on the verge of agreeing a deal worth up to £7.6m with Manchester United to bring back midfielder Toby Collyer, who impressed on loan at The Hawthorns in the first half of last season. Talks have been ongoing for weeks; now Albion are ready to get it over the line.
Morrison isn’t dressing it up as anything other than a key move in a carefully managed rebuild. He knows what Collyer brings, knows he fits, and knows the margins at the top end of the Championship are thin.
While the Collyer deal edges closer, Morrison has already started working with his latest arrival. Spanish winger Kareem Tunde joined from Levante this week and has immediately caught the head coach’s eye.
"It's a big opportunity for him, coming to a new culture, still only being 21," Morrison told BBC Radio WM. "He's an exciting prospect and an exciting player, so we're delighted to have him.
"It just gives us different options now and I felt like we've always missed that little bit in games where we could stretch our opposition and he's got that pace and power that we've been looking for."
Tunde becomes Albion’s eighth signing of a busy summer. Morrison, though, is not treating that as a finish line.
"I am hopeful," he said when asked about more arrivals before the 1 September deadline. "There's been a lot of hard work been going on behind the scenes. We have to do things a little bit differently, we have to be clever about it and I felt that we've been doing that because we've had a lot of signings."
The recruitment drive is being layered on top of a flying start. West Brom have taken maximum points from their first two Championship fixtures, giving Morrison the platform – and the leverage – to demand those final “finishing touches” to his squad.
Next comes a trip loaded with personal history for the head coach: Middlesbrough away on Saturday. Last season’s beaten play-off finalists are searching for momentum, but the Riverside remains one of the division’s toughest assignments. For Morrison, it is also home.
He grew up there. He started his career there. And he’s already lived through the emotional whirlwind of going back.
"I've been back many times and played, so I'm over that," he said. "I can remember my first one going back and I was all over the place, I was terrible. So I learnt from that experience.
"I think my last time there as a player, I ended up scoring and I still remember that feeling. So I'm really looking forward to the game, but also I know this is going to be one of the toughest away fixtures we'll face.
"But they've [the Albion players] set a standard now and they can't let it drop."
New signings, old ties, and a perfect start to protect. Morrison knows exactly what’s at stake in Teesside – and he wants a squad, and a performance, to match it.
