West Brom lauded for striking £12m Stoke City agreement - his career 'nosedived' | OneFootball

Saido Berahino was unable to live up to the initial hype that surrounded his breakthrough.

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 have struck many eye-catching transfer agreements throughout their rich and lengthy history, and the sale of Saido Berahino to Stoke City in 2017 was certainly one of them.

In recent times, several homegrown talents have made their mark at The Hawthorns before going on to bigger and better things elsewhere, or in some cases, being sold on for a hefty profit that would eventually become unjustified due to their subsequent performances.

During the summer transfer window of 2025, such developments became a hot topic of discussion in this part of the West Midlands when Albion's former creative spark, Tom Fellows, was sold to Championship rivals, Southampton, for a rather minimal eight-figure sum.

An initial fee of £10m sparked reactions of major disappointment amongst Albion supporters, especially when taking a divisional joint-high tally of 14 assists in 2024/25 into account as well as previously mooted price-tags.

However, another prospect who was the subject of a significant transfer sum was Saido Berahino, whose initial rise to Premier League stardom in B71 was well-documented, before the Burundi international forward saw the trajectory of his career firmly turn the other way in such a short period of time.

Therefore, it is a deal, to this day, that Baggies supporters, such as Football League World's Albion fan pundit, Callum Burgess, have praised the club for striking, when reflecting on his initial £12m switch to Stoke City in January 2017.

The highly-rated prospect was handed his first-team breakthrough at West Brom at the start of the 2013/14 Premier League campaign, filling the void left by Romelu Lukaku, who also made a name for himself the previous season whilst on loan from Chelsea.

His first start for the club brought an EFL Cup hat-trick against Newport County in August 2013, before continuing a rapid rise by netting a first league goal in a memorable 2-1 success against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

After scoring nine times in all competitions that season, Berahino's best-ever season would come in 2014/15, where he scored 14 league goals and 20 across all competitions, including a brace against champions Chelsea in May 2015.

However, this season would also bring the first potential rumblings of discontent, as the club refused to sell their prized asset for a major profit until the end of the campaign, very much contradicting Berahino's individual stance on the matter.

After continued controversy involving a transfer and then-Albion boss, Tony Pulis, Berahino would see his game time take a hit, and after making just 40 more appearances for the club across 18 months, he was sold to the Potters for an initial £12m sum, which had the potential to rise to £15m.

However, given that the Burundian scored just five times in 56 appearances whilst at the bet365 Stadium, Burgess still believes Albion were, by far, the winners of said transfer agreement.

"When Berahino broke into the Albion team in 2013/14, no one really expected his career to turn out the way it did," he told FLW.

"I think, even when he did go to Stoke, the expectation was that - even though he'd been out of the Albion team - he'd be able to get a few goals for them. But, it really did take a nosedive.

"To get £12-15m, at the time, was definitely great business from Albion for a striker who didn't score another Premier League goal for the rest of his career," Burgess stated.

"Since then, he's acknowledged that he wishes his career at The Hawthorns didn't pan out this way, and he seems to show more regret towards how he acted in the final stages of his Albion career. With it being the prime of his career too, he would definitely think that.

"It's a shame that his career took a nosedive."

Saido Berahino ended up at two obscure sides in recent times

After leaving Stoke in 2019, Berahino has played for six clubs, with the most notable being a short stint at Sheffield Wednesday under former Albion boss, Darren Moore, where he scored eight times in 29 League One appearances in 2021/22.

Since then, he has featured for AEK Limassol, Rajasthan United and most recently, Tabor Seżana of the Slovenian second tier.

Back in March, it made headlines that Berahino had scored for the first time since 2023 in one of his seven appearances for the club, with his 84th-minute strike helping Sezana to a 2-0 success over Triglav Kranj, before scoring a further two goals in the remainder of the campaign.

Regardless of whether he plays professionally or semi-professionally again, it shows the fall from grace such a promising forward endured in just a matter of years.