Jonathan Kodjia 2.0? £5.3m Bristol City transfer was worth every penny: View | OneFootball

During the mid-to-late 2010s, Bristol City became a side filled with 'streets won't forget' players, with the likes of an energetic Joe Bryan, a towering Aden Flint and even a young Tammy Abraham.

However, two strikers that the West Country side had in their ranks are perhaps the most well-known among avid Championship football watchers.

Jonathan Kodjia didn't stick around for long in Bs3 but certainly made so much an impact that when Famara Diedhiou joined for £5.3m, many wondered if he could become Kodjia 2.0

There was no need to worries though, as the Senegalised proved worth the fee.

Jonathan Kodjia's blistering spell in Bristol

As mentioned, Kodjia didn't spend long with the Robins, only completing one full season, 2015-16, with them but he certainly made an impact.

The previous season, the club had Aaron Wilbraham firing them to promotion from League One, but with a step-up in division, they felt extra firepower was needed. Therefore, the Frenchman was signed for a reported £2m fee.

He had come to England off the back of a great season in the Ligue 2 with Angers SCO. In 29 games he had scored 15 goals and collected the division's player of the year award after his great goalscoring form had fired his side to promotion.

Arriving at Ashton Gate, he quickly became accustomed to starting alongside the large frame of Wilbraham and made good on the promise he arrived with from France, scoring in only his second game for the club, a 4-2 home defeat to Brentford.

Throughout the season, he would maintain decent goalscoring form for the Robins and keep his starting spot alongside a rotating second striking option containing the likes of Wilbraham and Lee Tomlin among others. Overall, in his fantastic season at Ashton Gate, he scored 20 goals, helping the club stay up in the Championship.

But following a shock relegation for Aston Villa from the Premier League at the end of 2015-16, City's star man was soon poached, not without the Robins making a healthy profit though. He left the Robins four games into 16/17 for a reported initial fee of £11m.

Sourcing a permanent replacement

The Robins did have to act quickly to replace Kodjia and bought in a young prospect by the name of Tammy Abraham on loan from Chelsea. It was, famously, a success. During 2016/17, he arguably outdid the man he was replacing, becoming the side's main source of goals, scoring 26 in 48 appearances.

However, the signing of the then-Chelsea forward was never going to be the permanent replacement for Kodjia, so scouts were sent far and wide to find a cheap option who could offer Kodjia's pace, goalscoring prowess and fantastic cohesion with the squad, and where did they go? Back to Angers SCO.

Yes, that's right, City did just simply return to the side they had taken Kodjia from to sign a certain Famara Diedhiou, despite him not having the same type of scoring record as Frenchman Kodjia.

Famara Diedhiou became a cult hero in the West Country

The Senegalese was certainly a risky signing ahead of the 2017/18 season, arriving for £5.3m, at the time a record transfer fee paid by Bristol City.

He was coming off a season where he'd only netted nine goals in Ligue 1 for Angers, having replaced Kodjia to become the French team's main man up top, but he had managed to keep the team up in France's top division.

However, upon netting on his debut, it is fair to say nerves were very quickly put to bed, and Bristol City fans, and hierarchy, would have felt that they had got their transfer business spot on. In that first full season, he wouldn't replicate the high amount of goals scored by Kodjia, netting only 13 times in the Championship but he was only behind Bobby Decordova-Reid in the top scorers chart.

In his next season, he would score the exact same number of goals, but this time top the goalscoring charts with Reid having moved on to pastures new.

In both seasons, however, he and the team did their job of maintaining Bristol City's championship status, something which would've also been on the mind of Robins scouts and transfer team when sanctioning the deal to sign the Senegalese native.

Continuing his decent form for the club, in 2019/20 he would net twelve goals and then follow that up with eight in the next season. In that time, too, he would surpass 50 goals for the club and establish himself as a cult hero for many fans.

Despite never being the most prolific, the fact he made the team click with not only his goals but his height and strength, made him a popular player and one that many supporters would have been relieved to see on the teamsheet week in, week out.

The duo's history since leaving Ashton Gate

Since leaving Bristol City, neither striker has been able to better their individual goalscoring feats.

The best season that Kodjia managed to have was in the same season he left Bs3 to make the move up to Birmingham and Aston Villa, where he scored 19 goals in 36 Championship games.

Meanwhile, the best that Diedhiou could manage after leaving the Robins was 13 goals for Alanyaspor in Turkey, which coincidentally was also in the first season after his departure.

Currently, Frenchman Kodjia can be found playing back in the French second division, for FC Annency. After his spells in England at Bristol City and Villa, he did play over in Qatar for two different sides in the Qatar Stars League but has since come back to the country of his birth, where he still hasn't registered a goal.

Diedhiou, on the other hand, is back on British shores, currently playing on loan at Cardiff City from Spanish side Granada. In his thirteen games so far for the Bluebirds, he has only netted once and not produced the same quality as he once did over the River Severn for the Robins.

He may not have hit quite the single-season goalscoring heights as his predecessor but considering his contributions over the years and his fan favourite status at Ashton Gate, signing the striker has to be viewed as a success.