West Bromwich Albion have stuttered in recent matches in the Championship, with zero wins picked up from their last three clashes in the challenging division.
It’s no coincidence that results have started to go astray as Josh Maja’s goal output also begins to dry up. The ex-Sunderland attacker has now fired frustrating blanks over the last two winless matches.
Carlos Corberan will hope Maja gets back to his best soon, as the Baggies boss goes about trying to breathe life back into his troops during the international break.
The Spaniard will keep his fingers crossed that the striker’s time with the club doesn’t fizzle out after these devastating displays early into the new season, in a similar fashion to Daryl Dike’s injury-prone career.
Daryl Dike's transfer to West Brom
The world was expected of Dike when he made the leap to the Baggies in 2022, linking up with former manager Valerien Ismael to potentially take the Championship by storm for his new employers.
He was even being outlandishly labelled as West Brom’s potential ‘next Romelu Lukaku’ as per US football expert Larry Henry Jr when speaking to the Express and Star at the time, who had been keeping a close eye on his progression since his MLS days at Orlando City.
“I see Daryl playing a similar style to Romelu Lukaku or Christian Benteke during their younger years. Both players are strong at their hold-up play and being a constant threat in the box, and Daryl has looked to take a similar route to his game.”
The bumper £7m fee also didn’t help Dike’s case, but his promising goalscoring record with the Tykes and back in his native America suggested it was an expensive gamble that could pay off, with 18 goals managed from 35 MLS appearances on top of firing home nine goals from 22 appearances for Barnsley.
Yet, the move has never really gone to plan for the imposing 6 foot 2 striker at the Hawthorns, with more time spent in and out of the treatment room at the West Midlands club than proving his worth on the pitch with clinical displays.
He is yet to feature this campaign for Corberan’s men, after suffering this unlucky Achilles injury back in February, with his value tumbling way below his previous £7m price tag consequently.
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Daryl Dike's transfer value in 2024
As a result of his injury-ravaged couple of seasons at West Brom to date, Dike’s value has taken a sharp fall to £1.5m – according to Football Transfers – with his minutes very infrequent for the Baggies.
Last campaign, the American attacker was only fit enough to make a meagre four appearances in the league, whilst his debut season saw him pull up with a season-ending hamstring concern only two games into his January move.
24/25
0
0
23/24
5
1
22/23
25
7
21/22
2
0
It’s been the very definition of a stop-start period of his career, when looking at the table above, with the hope that he can start bang in the goals soon for West Brom when fully back up to speed with his fitness.
His 2023/24 output did indicate that he has a similar deadliness in front of goal to that of Lukaku in his back pocket, with seven goals managed from 25 games during his best patches of games to date in Baggies strip, as the Belgian registered an impressive 17 strikes from 38 games on loan at the Hawthorns before further exploding into life elsewhere.
Of course, West Brom’s patience will be wearing very thin with their injury-prone striker, who does seem to be edging closer to being back in contention for some starts soon according to reports.
But, it will be an almighty risk to throw him straight back into the deep end, with his value in danger of decreasing even further if he isn’t back on a pitch shortly to try and resurrect his Baggies career.
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