West Brom fell flat with £18m transfer agreement - 'It is a shame' | OneFootball

The £18m man spent five years at the Hawthorns but didn’t quite live up to his fee

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

West Bromwich Albion committed significant funds to bring in Grady Diangana on a permanent deal in 2020, but he never quite lived up to expectations.

He spent the season prior on loan at the Hawthorns from West Ham, notching eight goals as he helped the Baggies to Premier League promotion.

That prompted the permanent £18m move, and a five-year contract along with it, and although the DR Congo international became a regular fixture with West Brom, he never hit the heights some may have been expecting from him.

We asked our West Brom fan pundit, Callum Burgess, whether he feels his club overpaid for the player five years ago.

West Brom muddled their transfer strategy in 2020

Speaking to Football League World, Callum said: “It's probably very easy to say that Albion did end up overpaying for Grady Diangana in the end.

“I think that whole summer transfer window where Albion wanted to reward their loan players who helped get them into the Premier League by signing them once again to give them a chance at the top flight.

“Yeah, that plan didn't end up going very well at all, and pretty much meant that Albion's fate was sealed before a ball was kicked.

“We never really got competitive until that January transfer where [Sam] Allardyce brought in [Okay] Yokuslu, [Mbaye] Diagne, etc.

“But, yeah, it is a shame because when we did sign Diangana there was so much hype and excitement around him, but unfortunately, he wasn’t able to hit the heights he did hit in his first season in the Championship.

“He scored that great goal against Everton, which got eyebrows raised and people thinking that there might be a player here, but that was as high as it got for Grady.”

Grady Diangana was still a positive force at the Hawthorns

As Callum outlined, West Brom didn’t get things quite right in their promotion back to the Premier League, and Diangana’s expensive move was a symptom of that.

He netted just one goal in that top-flight season, despite arriving as a club-record signing, suggesting he did not have the impact many were expecting.

But that didn’t stop him being a solid Championship player, after sticking with the club through their relegation.

Loan spell aside, his best season was 2023/24, where he provided seven goals and eight assists, but that output had dropped last season to four goals and three assists.

The financial side of the deal may cause West Brom the most regret

While Diangana’s stats were okay in recent years, there were nowhere near the level expected from such an expensive signing.

What’s worse, is that once his contract was up at the Hawthorns, he departed on a free to La Liga side Elche, meaning the Midlands club recouped none of their initial investment in the player.

He was also, according to estimates from Capology, on around £20k per week for the duration of his five-year stay, putting him among the club’s top earners for that season.

Combined together, it’s a significant outlay for a player unlikely to leave a last memory beyond the few solid Championship seasons he gave the club.

The fact that, at 27 years old, the prime years of his career, he’s gone to one of La Liga’s smaller concerns suggests that the top flight of English football was never where Diangana was meant to be.

It’s a move that West Brom will likely just have to accept they didn’t get quite right.