West Brom: £4.7million signing proved to be an utter bust - View | OneFootball

The 2008/09 season is not one that anybody of a West Bromwich Albion persuasion will want to remember in a hurry.

Having won promotion back to the Premier League the season before as Championship title winners, the Baggies were unable re-establish themselves in the top-flight.

Instead, they would end that 08/09 campaign bottom of the Premier League, suffering an immediate relegation back to the second-tier.

Indeed, they would win just eight league games all season, three of which came in their opening seven games, after which the campaign turned into a long hard slog for West Brom.

That will have been a difficult period for everyone involved at The Hawthorns, and one individual who did not exactly cover himself in glory at that time was Borja Valero.

In the wake of their promotion to the Premier League, the Baggies brought in a number of new players in the summer of 2008.

One of those to join the club was Borja Valero. The midfielder made the move to The Hawthorns on a four-year deal from La Liga side Mallorca.

To complete that deal, West Brom broke their then transfer record by spending a reported £4.7million for the signing of the Spaniard.

It was not an investment that proved fruitful for the Baggies. Valero struggled to settle in England as West Brom slipped towards relegation, failing to score and providing just three assists in 36 appearances in all competitions for the club.

What happened next, is unlikely to help the way he is remembered around The Hawthorns either.

Borja Valero did not stick around in the event of West Brom's relegation

In the wake of West Brom's relegation from the Premier League, Valero then admitted in the summer of 2009, that he would prefer to return to Mallorca rather than play in the Championship.

His wish was granted on the final day of that summer's transfer window, when he completed a move to Mallorca on loan for the 2009/10 campaign.

Although that deal was a temporary one, he would never play for West Brom again.

Valero instead then spent the 2010/11 season on loan at Villarreal, a move that was made permanent in the summer of 2011, for an undisclosed fee.

After completing that move, Valero spent another year in Spain, before making the move to Italy when he joined Fiorentina in 2012.

He would spent several years with I Viola, before heading elsewhere in Serie A in 2017, with a move to Inter Milan.

Just as he had done in La Liga following his departure from West Brom, Valero did impress during his time with those two Italian clubs.

Valero would even enjoy runs to a couple of cup finals during his time in Italy, and with the midfielder performing well at top-flight level with those clubs, some West Brom faithful may be questioning why he was unable to do the same at The Hawthorns.

The Baggies were relegated by just three points during the 2008/09 season, and so had Valero been able to make the sort of impact at those other clubs, things may have worked out differently for West Brom, allowing them to get a better return on their investment in Valero.

As it is, they did not, and so that combined with the way he made his desire to leave clear in the wake of relegation, means it is hard to imagine Valero ever really being a popular figure at The Hawthorns again.