The Albion gaffer was a busy man during the summer transfer window, spending over £20million and adding 12 players to his squad.

But of those 12, only Scott Carson and Luke Moore were English, with the Baggies now having players of 17 different nationalities on the books.

Mowbray was linked with the likes of Ipswich forward Jonathan Walters and Portsmouth striker David Nugent - but was put off by their respective £5million and £4million price tags.

Instead he raided the Dutch Eredivisie to snap up defenders Gianni Zuiverloon, Jonas Olsson and Ryan Donk, and spent £4.7million on bringing classy midfielder Borja Valero to the club from Real Mallorca.

Having unearthed gems such as Felipe Teixeira, Kim Do-Heon and Robert Koren from foreign fields, Mowbray admits it is the way forward for the club.

He said: "We can't pay over the odds and this is a club where you have to put all of those things into the equation.

"There are English players we like but if you go and ask the question, you are asked for too much money.

"We are trying to get value for money in the market we are in and with the funds we have got.

"We can't go buying Robinho. It's just a fact of life.

"There are some players in League Two who we quite like and would like to bring to our club to help us.

"But we get quoted £1million-plus for players in League Two and we're not at the level to pay that kind of money for them.

"Clubs like Liverpool at the moment are signing 17 or 18-year-olds from Spain that no-one has ever heard of and may never surface.

"But they are hoping they may surface in a few years and because of that, they pay decent money for them.

"We would like to be able to do that but we have to do it at a certain level and Dorrans is the example.

"We paid about £100,000 for him, which is fine. If we could bring nine or 10 in at that sort of price, we would do that.

"We go abroad because the prices you would pay in the lower leagues here are the prices you would pay abroad for someone to go straight into your team," he added in the Birmingham Mail.