Danny Wright

Thu 5 November 2020 15:10, UK

Jim White and Simon Jordan unsurprisingly failed to do their research on West Brom before an ill-informed discussion on Ahmed Hegazi’s move to Al-Ittihad.

Last month, it was confirmed that Hegazi had left the Baggies to join the Saudi Arabian club on an initial loan deal that will be made permanent at the end of the season.

According to The Sun, Hegazi’s transfer will net Albion £4million while the Express & Star reported that the Egypt international was the club’s highest-earner on a deal worth £70,000-a-week.

Financially, you can see why West Brom agreed the deal.

Yes, it irked Slaven Bilic that the colossal defender was sold without him want him to be but at least you can say that Albion have freed up some funds to strengthen the squad when the January transfer window opens.

But, when talking about Bilic’s future at The Hawthorns and the sale of Hegazi, White and Jordan acted totally baffled by the centre-back’s exit as they simply described it as a straight loan deal.

As shown in a clip on talkSPORT’s official Twitter account, White asked ex-Crystal Palace owner Jordan: “Why you have the hump with your manager if he spoke out publicly against you for loaning out a player against his wishes?

Jordan replied: “Of course you would. But by the same token, in this situation, I can’t understand the logic behind the transaction.

“If it’s me going to my manager and saying ‘this is what I’m doing, I’m the owner of the club so I’m going to do this but I’m going to give you this in return, but I need to do it because I’m getting £50million for this player’.

“This is a loan transaction so it doesn’t make any sense.

“There is zero benefit for the club.”

Selling a player against a manager’s wishes isn’t ideal – but there is definitely a benefit to this transfer.

Hegazi was barely playing for West Brom when the decision was made to sell him.

He hadn’t been involved in Bilic’s matchday squads for the three Premier League games leading up to his final Albion outing which came in the 0-0 draw with Burnley last month.

The former Fiorentina defender also started just 14 of 46 Championship matches last season, yet he became the highest-earning player at The Hawthorns.

White’s and Jordan’s ill-informed discussion about Hegazi paints the wrong picture about West Brom.

While we want to sit here and defend Bilic and say that the club was wrong to go behind his back and sell Hegazi, you have to admit that there were plenty of reasons to justify their decision.

If Bilic is still around in January – and we hope he is – he might be thankful for the £4million he now finds added to his transfer budget and the millions of pounds saved on the wage bill by Hegazi’s move to Saudi Arabia.

And let’s not forget that the player himself might have wanted this move.

Last December, Hegazi was involved in a training ground incident after Al-Ittihad reportedly had a bid rejected for him ahead of the last January transfer window [FourFourTwo].

He’s also been barely playing for West Brom and when Al-Ittihad came calling, he was handed a chance to move closer to his home nation of Egypt, play in a country that speaks the same language as him, potentially gets to earn more money, gets more game-time and has a chance to play for silverware.

To the English football fan, a move to Saudi Arabia is a step down from the Premier League but Hegazi isn’t an English football fan.

He’s an Egypt international who had been cast to the fringes of a squad that looks doomed for relegation this season.

If Hegazi wanted out, who can really blame him?

And if Bilic really wanted Hegazi to stay, why didn’t he play him more both this season and last?

In other West Brom news, Bilic could axe one player for a decisive match against Tottenham this weekend.

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