West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Mowbray has admitted that he may be doing his shopping abroad this summer if the British market continues to prove too expensive.

Mowbray got his fingers burnt in January when his long-time plan to bring in Hibernian midfield duo Kevin Thomson and Scott Brown was spiked by his old club taking advantage of a sellers' market to help hike up the price.

After going as high as a joint £5 million bid in an attempt to lure them south, Albion's failure to land Thomson and Brown may come to be regarded as the turning point of their season - not that much was made of it at the time as the Baggies were on a barn-storming run that took them to the top of the league.

But now Albion are struggling to hang on even to a play-off place, Mowbray and his staff are on the alert for a summer reshuffle.

And, disappointed though he was by Friday night's dismal 1-0 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, the Baggies boss was pleased that it at least offered the opportunity to do a little bit of overseas scouting the following day.

"It gave the staff an opportunity to get out of the country and watch some games and try and identify some players for next season," said Mowbray. "The ones in this country are pretty expensive.

"There are good ones but, invariably, the UK market is expensive. "The price has always got to be right. I'll have a valuation on any player, I'll look at it and once it goes over that valuation, let someone else spend the money on them because there are plenty of decent players."

Mowbray's main concerns are still in the short term, though.

Having got away, to a certain extent, with Friday night's home defeat by remaining in the top five, if results fail to go their way again, Albion may have dropped out of the top six by the time they go to Burnley on Monday night. And Mowbray has the job of finding replacements for Neil Clement and Darren Carter, both of whom will miss the final three games of the season after being sent off in those mad final few minutes at The Hawthorns.

Carter's one-match ban for his red card comes into effect after he has served his two-game suspension for reaching ten bookings, thereby ruling him out for Albion's scheduled last three matches.

Clement's straight red card earned an automatic three-game ban, extended to four on account of it being his second of the campaign, taking him into the first semi final of the play-offs, should Albion get there. And that highlights the importance of Mowbray having on-loan Reading defender Sam Sodje fit for the trip to Burnley.

The news that Sodje had extended his stay with Albion until after the playoffs was not broken until late on Friday night. But, by then, he had limped off with a second-half ankle injury. And Mowbray is anticipating better news on that front if he is not to have take emergency action.