West Brom’s director of football administration Richard Garlick has discussed the Baggies’ record signing of attacker Brown Ideye, including suggesting why the fortunes of the player didn’t go as planned, in comments published in the Mirror from a meeting with the Albion Assembly fans group.
The Nigerian arrived from Dynamo Kiev for what the Mirror say was as much as £10 million in the summer of 2014, a record since broken by the transfer of Salomon Rondon, having impressed in the Ukrainian capital with 45 goals in 106 games.
But the 26-year-old was unable to regularly perform to a similar standard in the Premier League after his move, finishing last season with just 7 strikes in 30 matches.
He moved to Greek Super league side Olympiakos at the end of August for what the Mirror report says was a big loss, and Garlick insisted the player was well scouted before a move, but a change of managers played a part in his inability to make an impression, with Pepe Mel leaving the club at the end of the previous season and Alan Irvine taking over as head coach.
“He [Ideye] was recommended,” Garlick is quoted as saying by the Mirror.
“The target list that was put up for that season there were three strikers of which he was one of them which the recruitment department had recommended.
“Unfortunately what happens in football.. at the time it was Alan Irvine who didn’t know the player and was reliant upon the recommendations of that recruitment department.
“Recruitment works where the department put recommendations forward, they sift through players, they get to a stage where they can put it into the coaching staff, be it the assistant manager, manager head coach or whoever it is and they get the final say and sign off of it.
“In hindsight they all should have been thoroughly reviewed. But, if you remember, Pepe Mel was on the way out so he wasn’t really doing any recruitment work.”
Garlick did emphasise that decent work was done on researching Ideye, and that it wasn’t a uneducated move even if the striker did underwhelm during his short time at West Brom.
“It wasn’t like he was just plucked out of thin air,” he added.
“Those were the recommendations. We had reports on him, he’d been looked at four or five times over a period of time.
“His goal scoring record was good, what you could see on the clips was good, he’s actually a really good guy, a good character.”
West Brom director defends Ideye
