They are not well-known names, like Darren Bent or Elliott Bennett, but signing them is of more significance to the long-term health of a currently ailing Albion.

Behind the scenes, in the array of high-tech offices at the club's mindboggling £30 million training complex in Lancing, Paul Winstanley and his recruitment colleagues are beavering away in preparation for the January transfer window.

Detailed data on potential signings domestic and foreign - everything from their strengths and weaknesses, name of their agent to the length of their contract - is stored and analysed, together with video clips, to help manager Sami Hyypia assess his options.

Winstanley was appointed in the summer by Albion as player identification manager.

He happens to have an in-depth knowledge of the test awaiting the Seagulls at the iPro Stadium tomorrow, after seven seasons at table-topping Derby County as head of recruitment and then head analyst under Nigel Clough and Steve McClaren, but his primary duty is to help Albion recruit astutely.

Winstanley has brought on board Jamie Johnson as overseas scout following the summer departure of Spain-based Zigor Aranalde.

Johnson, Millwall's chief scout for four years, has been joined in the revised set-up by a name supporters will be more familiar with, former Fulham, Blackburn and West Ham centre-half Ian Pearce.

Pearce has taken charge of scouting in London and the South-East. Walsall-based Darrem Wrack looks after the Midlands and North rather than the whole country.

Wrack was retained from the former recruitment team under ex-West Ham goalkeeper Mervyn Day, who is now with West Brom.

Below Pearce and Wrack are a posse of part-time scouts also out watching games day and night, identifying potential signings.

It is an ultra-competitive business. Most, if not all, clubs at Championship level - as well as some even in the Premier League- will not benefit from quite the same impressive quality of facilities but they will be devoting similar resources to unearth the goalkeeper or goalscorer who can make a difference to the team's fortunes.

The hope is that Winstanley and company, working closely with Hyypia in his office overlooking the training pitches, located just yards away, can produce vital improvement after a difficult summer transfer window for the club.

They could not do much about losing Leo Ulloa, Matt Upson and Will Buckley to the Premier League, other than ensuring in the cases of Ulloa and Buckley that they were well compensated.

Where they fell short was in assembling a squad equipped for the club's third top six finish in the Championship in as many seasons.

The most damning aspect of the 2-1 defeat by Fulham at the Amex last Saturday, which dropped Hyypia's side into the relegation zone for the first time, was not the result.

It was not another lead quickly lost, although you wonder if that would be happening quite so regularly if strong charcters like Upson, Stephen Ward and Keith Andrews were still part of the group.

It was not the poorly executed free-kicks which the players, not Hyypia, have to take responsibility for.

It was the teamsheet. Absent from the starting line-up were five of Albion's seven outfield permanent signings.

Sam Baldock, with one goal in 11 appearances, was dropped to the bench following the capture on loan of Darren Bent from Aston Villa and the re-availability of Elliott Bennett, who was barred from playing a part in the previous game against parent club Norwich.

Baldock was accompanied as an unused substitute by Danny Holla. Paddy McCourt and Nzuzi Toko were not in the squad (Toko hardly ever has been) and Chris O'Grady has already been shipped out on loan to Sheffield United.

That left Adrian Colunga and Aaron Hughes who, although a sound replacement for Upson, would also almost certainly have been on the bench with Baldock and Holla if captain Gordon Greer had been fit.

The other permanent summer signing, goalkeeper David Stockdale, is beginning to justify why he was bought to succeed the unsure-footed Tomasz Kuszczak after form, sharpness and injury issues.

Baldock, Albion's main summer striker target, and O'Grady were purchased from League One Bristol City and Barnsley respectively for a combined potential cost in the region of £6 million, taking into account transfer fees, wages and lengths of contract.

Three loan signings were also made in the summer. Left-back Joe Bennett and midfielder Gary Gardner, both regulars in Hyypia's line-up, were recruited from Aston Villa, due in part to a good reference for Albion from Villa's now-departed No.2 Roy Keane.

Keane was hugely impressed by what he saw and heard when visiting the club for a match towards the end of last season in his capacity as assistant manager of the Republic of Ireland.

The other summer loanee, Portugese prospect Joao Teixeira, snared via Hyypia's still-strong Liverpool connections, has become the victim of a squad overloaded with loans, four more of them during the emergency window.

Ali Al-Habsi (back at Wigan) and the versatile Greg Halford from Nottingham Forest were drafted in to cover for injuries to Stockdale and Hughes.

Albion would loved to have landed Bent and Elliott Bennett to give an extra push to a team pressing again at the right end of the table, not one now embroiled in a fight to stay up.

Liverpool, you would imagine, will not be too impressed that Teixeira, loaned out to gain more first-team experience, has become the unfortunate odd man out, with six loan signings on the books and only five allowed in the matchday squad.

The six-into-five won't go puzzle for Hyypia persists until January following the retention of Halford amid concerns over the knee injury Greer has been carrying.

It does not matter how big the club is, or how esteemed the manager, or how cute the recruitment structure is, they will get some signings wrong. That is the nature of the beast. The trick is to get more right than wrong, to tip the scales in your favour.

During Gus Poyet's reign at Albion the club bought Craig Mackail-Smith. From day one they never played in a manner suited to his strengths and, after three years of mainly frustration and his fair share of injuries, Mackail-Smith is back on loan at his old club Peterborough.

The Mackail-Smith deal has not worked out as either party would have wished but the capture of Ulloa and the healthy profit made selling him to Leicester more than made amends.

From here on in it is crucial that Albion get more of their future signings right than wrong. The revamped recruitment team, overseen by head of football David Burke, have important work to do, particularly in what is shaping up to be a pivotal January transfer window.

The repercussion, if Albion get it wrong, could be the best stadium and training facility League One has ever seen.