West Brom seek Carew deal

10 January 2011 09:00

West Brom assistant Eddie Newton is hopeful of tying up a deal for Aston Villa striker John Carew in the coming weeks and believes the Norwegian has the personality to lift the Albion squad.

Carew, 31, has long been linked with a move to the Hawthorns after falling out of favour under new Villa boss Gerard Houllier. He is out of contract in the summer and Newton hopes to lure him across the midlands in time to save Roberto Di Matteo's side from the drop.

"We are interested in Carew, there is no doubt about that," said Newton.

"It's no secret and we will see where that goes from here.

"We know that he will bring us something different with his physical presence and that is exactly what we are talking about. He is a big personality as well and that can help us in our situation."

Albion looked jaded in FA Cup defeat at Reading on Saturday and are short of defensive options - a situation not helped by Jonas Olsson's red card. Newton conceded that suspensions and injuries have taken their toll on his small squad but warned expectant supporters that there is not the funds for a major squad rebuilding.

He said: "It's important to get faces in but they need to be the right faces.

"We don't want bodies in for the sake of bodies, we need players who will bring something different to us and help us out of our situation. We need to re-energise the squad but we have to be careful as we don't have the money to go mad.

"We can't splash out and bring in a big name so we will have to be clever in the market and maybe bring one in who everyone else has missed. In an ideal world we would love to bring in five or six players but we can't. It's as simple as that.

"We hope to bring in one or two but we will have to see. We have a very small squad and suspensions and injuries we are picking up are not helping at the moment. But we know what we want and we will stick with our targets."

Source: PA