West Brom boss Alan Pardew has urged the Baggies board to improve their contract offer to Jonny Evans.
Albion rejected a deadline day bid, rising to £12 million, from Arsenal with the Baggies determined to hold onto their captain late in the window.
A new deal has been tentatively discussed this season, but Evans is unlikely to sign anything until the summer, when it will be clear which division Albion are in.
The defender reportedly has a £3m relegation release clause in his current contract and the Baggies are bottom of the Premier League ahead of Saturday's visit of Southampton.
And Pardew wants to ensure Albion give Evans -- whose deal expires next summer -- their best offer, with the club likely to need to offer over £100,000-a-week.
"I told him what happened on Wednesday, he understood that, and now in my view we need to sit Jonny down and see if we can get a contract that works for him going forward," said Pardew. "If not, in the summer again we're going to have this situation.
"That's something that I will speak to the board about in the next couple of weeks. He can only be open to those discussions if the figures are right because the market dictates and we have to understand what those figures would have been elsewhere.
"Whether we can reach those figures I don't know.''
But Pardew praised Evans' professionalism after he was the subject of intense speculation in the last two transfer windows with Arsenal, Manchester City and Leicester making offers last summer.
"I've spoken to Jonny all the way through and I've said to him what I would be saying in the press, that the last two or three days would be very difficult unless the bid was of a significant amount," he said.
"I respect his position 100 percent and I've tried to be honest and fair with him from the day I walked in and I will be until the day I walk out and, as we mentioned before, his conduct around the training ground is spot on.
"He's clinical in terms of his thinking. Game time is game time and when he comes off the pitch of course he's effectively CEO of his own company. He decides his own fate."