Albion were busier than ever during the January transfer window, signing six players.

Jim McNulty and Craig Davies arrived on permanent deals, Seb Carole, Jason Jarrett, Chris Birchall and the on-loan Calvin Andrew for the rest of the season.

Despite the hectic activity and the significant boost to the Seagulls’ squad, Dick Knight dislikes the transfer window system and would like to see it reformed.

Here, the chairman explains why in an exclusive interview with Andy Naylor.

The transfer window system is being widely criticised. Are you pro or anti? I am not in favour of the window system at all. I think we should go back to having an open transfer period up to a deadline date in March, which is how it used to be.

How does the January window differ from the August window? The January transfer window is so much more intense than the August one, because teams are in trouble or trying to ensure promotion.

The whole thing is concentrated into a very narrow period and you get a domino effect. Clubs you are trying to get a player from are waiting on a deal for a player coming in to allow it to happen. You get a lot of tap dancing going on in the first part of January.

It should be called the last week in January window, because in reality business does not start getting done until that last week.

It underlines why it is so unworkable. It was originally brought in primarily to establish stability in the Premier League, not allowing the big clubs to snap up all the players prior to the deadline date.

What has happened is that it has created another deadline and an intense amount of competition.

How were Albion affected this time? I made firm offers for three players in the early part of this January window but I knew I wouldn’t really get a genuine reaction from the clubs in two of those cases.

One of the offers was for Jim McNulty. Two other clubs were interested in him at that stage and he wanted to see how it panned out.

That was quite unusual, to agree terms with a club early in the window. In the other two cases, the clubs weren’t going to react to them straight away because they were dependent on other players they were trying to get in so it focuses it all on the last week.

What about the role of agents? It is feeding frenzy time for the agents, because that is the real time they could earn enough money to spread out for the whole year.

Prices are forced up and that is totally unnecessary. If there was an open transfer market, deals would be done in a logical way and squad strengthening would take place naturally during the season.

I do not pay more than I feel is right in terms of the value of the player so it doesn’t force the prices up with me. At the other end of the scale you have got Manchester City, who can pay anything for anyone.

Generally speaking, the prices paid in the January window will be higher than they would have been if they had been spread throughout the whole year.

Do other clubs share your scepticism of the window system? I can assure you so many clubs are against it. The trouble is the whole system is linked to FIFA on a global basis.

Our Football League structure, with four divisions, is so much wider than in other countries. In most other countries there is only one major league.

There is no other precedent where smaller clubs are affected by the restrictions of the transfer window. It is impractical at our lower level and even in the Championship.

How would you like to see the system reformed? The FA and Football League should be concentrating on issues like this, which are to do with the practical running of football clubs, as opposed to the theory of running football clubs.

They should be putting real pressure on UEFA to get it changed for English football.

Fine, keep the window for the Premier League. It may well work for them with Premier League clubs in other countries, in terms of bringing in foreign players, but why have it for the Football League?

What about the two players Albion paid money for, Jim McNulty and Craig Davies? I know I’ve got good value for the two players I’ve bought. In each case the selling clubs (Stockport and Oldham) had higher offers.

The reason we got them is because myself and Micky (Adams) sold the club to them.

Jim McNulty was a classic example. He had two Championship clubs (Ipswich and Nottingham Forest) and another League One club (Leeds) interested in him.

Bearing in mind the expectation of fans in delivering signings, do you break out into a cold sweat on New Year’s Eve? It’s just part of the job. I am pretty experienced at it now and I think I’m a fair negotiator.

I enjoy that job. Every transfer negotiation is different. There was no pressure to deliver a certain number of players. Micky and I both knew we needed to strengthen the squad and we both knew the particular positions we wanted to aim for.

Are you happy with what you achieved? We have satisfied a number of those requirements to bring in extra quality. I don’t know if fans realise it is easy to get a player from League Two, it isn’t easy getting somebody from the Championship or somebody we know is capable of playing in the Championship.

Premier League clubs will often loan out young players. We identified Mark Randall and Jay Simpson (Arsenal) earlier in the season and Simpson is now out on loan in the Premier League (with West Brom), so we set our targets quite high.