PULIS A BIG PLUS FOR BAGGIES

SUNDAY MIRROR

A EUROPEAN place may be beyond them but Tony Pulis’s West Brom still rank among the continent’s elite clubs.

That’s according to new research by the European Football Observatory that tallies up clubs’ expenditure on players fielded over the 2016/17 season, and compares it to their league position.

West Brom are the Premier League’s 18th biggest spenders so far this season.

But the actual league-position snapshot ahead of the games played between Friday night and tomorrow, sees them eighth.

The difference between 18th and eighth gives them their +10 score.

That score not only put the Baggies well ahead of nearest Premier League challengers, Bournemouth (+7) and Burnley (+6) but in the top three across Europe’s top five leagues.

Only high-flying Atalanta in Italy’s Serie A, with a +10 gap, and Freiburg (+9) in Bundesliga are in West Brom’s league for cut-price heroics.

On that same PL snapshot, title-chasing Spurs found themselves fourth in the pounds for points league table with a respectable score of +4.

That put them two spots above Chelsea, whose 2016/17 playing squad is only the third priciest in the Premier League.

This is another table for Sunderland to prop up. The Black Cats’ expenditure on the players who have delivered relegation was the 12th highest in the Premier League, giving them a dismal score of -8.

West Ham and Crystal Palace sit next on the ladder of underachievement with -7.

Both Manchester clubs and Arsenal find themselves in the bottom seven of this table, with Jose Mourinho’s United scoring -4. That’s two worse than City and the north Londoners.