Daryl Dike to be first-choice striker for West Brom, Steve Bruce wants more
American international Daryl Dike will be the first-choice striker for West Brom in the 2022-23 Championship season, according to Birmingham Live.
The 22-year-old very rarely played for the Baggies last season after his January move from Orlando City with injuries plaguing his return to English football at The Hawthorns.
But he has refused a trip back to the States during the off-season to remain close to the training ground so he can work on getting fit for the new season.
Albion manager Steve Bruce has subsequently labelled Dike as his main man up top for the 2022-23 campaign over last season’s top scorer Karlan Grant but he wants even more.
The boss could delve into the transfer market for another potent goal scorer to complement the tall American but the club’s pockets are not massively deep for a big-money purchase this summer.
Trust
It could be considered somewhat unfair to shove last season’s top scorer to the side for a player who couldn’t keep himself fit but it is the right move to make.
We paid £7million to sign the 22-year-old in the previous transfer window and we can’t really afford to have a player of that value sitting around on the bench if he’s fit and raring to go.
His sheer physicality should be enough to give any defender in the second tier plenty of problems and if we can find ourselves a nippy yet clinical striker to pair him with then we would be suddenly among the favourites to go up.
The only issue, as always, is the money available to us because Bruce probably hasn’t got that amount of cash to splash on one individual.
There probably isn’t a player capable of doing what Bruce wants available for free either so the scouts are going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat to fulfil our wishes.
In other West Brom news, three academy graduates have joined the Baggies’ first-team squad on their pre-season training camp in Portugal this week.
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