Blackburn Rovers: The Venky's may always regret not accepting 8-figure Ben Brereton Diaz windfall | OneFootball

Ben Brereton Diaz left Blackburn on a free transfer in 2023. The club may regret rejecting prior approaches for the Chilean forward.

Despite boasting some of the best goalscoring names in recent Championship history, Blackburn Rovers have failed to get anywhere near the top flight since their relegation from the Premier League in 2012.

Jordan Rhodes, Adam Armstrong, Sammie Szmodics and Ben Brereton Diaz were all able to break the 20-goal barrier at Ewood Park.

However, the latter will always sting the most following the inevitable departure.

Rhodes, Armstrong and Szmodics all brought in respectable fees to Rovers for their services, with Armstrong's reaching a hefty £15 million.

However, Brereton Diaz's move to Villarreal on a free transfer will make the club continue to regret not taking a potential €10 million windfall just a year prior.

Ben Brereton Diaz's explosion at Ewood Park saw transfer interest in his services

The now-26-year-old spent the final part of his youth career with Nottingham Forest, arriving from hometown club Stoke City. He went on to make 53 appearances for the Garibaldi before moving to Blackburn on loan for the first half of the 2018/19 season, but it was always agreed for him to make the switch permanent in January 2019.

Despite failing to score a goal in the loan period, Brereton was obligated to sign for Blackburn permanently for a reported £7 million, and whilst it looked as though he may not ever live up to the hype he had as a teenager, he eventually blossomed into one of the best Championship forwards in recent times.

Brereton Diaz, as he's known now, actually arrived in East Lancashire as just 'Ben Brereton' before a call-up to the Chile national team in 2021 saw him take the unusual step to include both his father's and his mother's surnames in his name.

When he adopted Diaz in his name, his growth hit exponential levels, as that was when his Rovers career really took off, and he became a household name.

He rattled in 22 Championship goals in 2021/22 and followed it up with 14 the season after, although his goals could only help his side finish eighth and seventh respectively in those two seasons.

Those two seasons will certainly have left a bitter taste in the mouths of Rovers fans, who had to watch their side fall from heady heights in both campaigns, with both seasons serving as the closest they've come to a top-flight return yet.

Blackburn's Ben Brereton Diaz gamble backfired after bids were rejected - they let him walk for £0

Blackburn’s main challenge with the forward was that his best form only emerged when he had two years remaining on his contract.

This created a difficult balancing act - whether to keep a key player in pursuit of promotion or sell him while his market value was high.

Rovers faced a tough decision. Retaining Brereton Diaz gave them their strongest chance of returning to the Premier League, but there was always the risk that if they failed to go up, his value would decline as his contract ran down.

On the other hand, accepting a sizeable offer would have meant sacrificing their best hope of reaching the top flight if they couldn't replace him.

In the end, Blackburn chose to keep him until the end of his contract. He left for Villarreal on a free transfer following the 2022/23 season, but they received decent offers for his services the summer before.

With hindsight, it is easy to suggest the club made the wrong decision and should have sold him earlier. However, they could not have predicted that the team would collapse in the latter stages of two consecutive seasons.

Blackburn reportedly turned down a £10 million offer from Nice in the summer of 2022, passing up the opportunity to reinvest the funds elsewhere in the squad despite knowing there was a risk he would start to talk to non-English clubs in the following January on a bosman.

Ultimately, the decision proved costly. Rovers missed out on both promotion and profit, and Brereton Diaz departed without making the lasting impact the club had hoped for.

Failing to make much of an impact in Spain, Brereton Diaz spent six months on loan at Sheffield United in 2024 before making a £7 million move to newly promoted Southampton, which was followed by another loan spell with the Blades after failing to score across 10 Premier League appearances.

Brereton may face Blackburn for the first time since his departure this coming season if he remains at Southampton, having missed Sheffield United's Bramall Lane clash with Rovers back in May, and when if he does, the Venky's may look back on their decision to turn down an eight-figure fee for the forward and have their regrets.