Keane wowed by player West Brom sold for £1m, ‘He’s been excellent for years’
Roy Keane isn’t shocked to see former West Brom striker Chris Wood tearing up the Premier League at Nottingham Forest this season.
Wood, 32, has scored eight goals in 11 Premier League appearances for the East Midlands club and only Manchester City’s Erling Haaland [12] has netted more.
Albion brought New Zealand striker Wood to the UK in 2009 but after just 27 first-team appearances, three goals and six loan spells away from The Hawthorns, he was sold to Leicester City for £1million in 2013.
On this week’s episode of The Overlap, discussion centred on who has been the biggest surprise in the Premier League this season.
Wood was unanimously agreed upon as being one of the main ones but Keane doesn’t think the Kiwi’s form has been that much of a shock.
“It’s got to be Chris Wood. But are we surprised? I think he’s been excellent for years,” said Keane on The Overlap (21 November).
Paul Scholes replied by suggesting that Wood’s form has been a surprise due to the number of goals he’s managed to score so far this season.
Ex-England Women star Jill Scott agreed: “I’d say Chris Wood.”
Gary Neville then shared his verdict on the ex-West Brom striker: “I’d say it’s Wood at eight goals, he’s got to be in the top-three [biggest surprises of the season].”
Why did West Brom sell Chris Wood?
Wood was a promising young striker at The Hawthorns after he arrived from New Zealand.
However, his time in the Black Country saw him competing for a first-team spot with the likes of Roman Bednar, Peter Odemwingie, Marc-Antoine Fortune, Shane Long and Romelu Lukaku.
Due to that, he was regularly loaned out and it would be fair to say that aside from a brilliant 11-goal stint at Millwall, he didn’t really catch the eye in many of his loans.
He was then sold to Leicester in January 2013 after he initially joined them on loan.
Steve Clarke was the manager who sanctioned Wood’s sale – and with Lukaku and Odemwingie firing on all cylinders in the top half of the Premier League, you can understand why.
Ben Foster, however, has recently claimed on the Football Fill-In that Clarke sold the Nottingham Forest goal machine because he was “too big” and “too slow”.
Clearly, Clarke loved fast-paced forwards with Odemwingie and Long in his squad and while Lukaku was hardly the quickest and was bigger than a fridge, his goals and potential spoke for themself.
In other West Brom news, football fans have been shocked as a Baggies image went viral on social media.
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