View: Transfer update from reliable Euro journo offers insight into true extent of WBA struggles
West Brom and their finances have been at the centre of an awful lot of debate this transfer window.
Initially it was understood that the Baggies only had around £25 million or so to spend this summer, but a subsequent big money move for Grady Diangana, plus a reported £18 million interest in Huddersfield Town striker Karlan Grant, and it would appear that figure might be a little lower than the reality.
But nonetheless, this has been a window of relative frugality from Albion, and an update from Turkish journalist Ovunc Ozdem perfectly illustrates that point.
The reporter works for NTV Spor as a Besiktas correspondent, and writing on his personal Twitter earlier this week, he claimed that Croatia international defender Domagoj Vida rejected a transfer to The Hawthorns this summer because the club couldn’t match his current salary in Istanbul.
Ozdem suggests that Vida earns around £3 million per year in Turkey, and that both West Brom and AS Roma failed with bids to snap him up.
In the grand scheme of things, you could probably argue that this didn’t work out too badly for West Brom.
After all, they managed to bring in Branislav Ivanovic on a free transfer this summer, and the Serbia international averaged more aerial duel wins, more interceptions, more defensive duel success, and more ball recoveries last term, as per Wyscout.
But it does serve to reiterate just how tight things have been in the midlands this summer.
It’s clear that Bilic hasn’t been able to simply go out and snap up all of his priority targets, and we just have to hope that the players he has brought in have enough in the locker to help us beat the drop this term.
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