Oliver Burke features: West Brom's 5 biggest transfer flops in recent times | OneFootball

The Baggies have made some rather costly transfer blunders in years gone by...

West Bromwich Albion conducted strong business in the summer transfer window, which saw them seal an unexpected return for 2023/24 loan star Mikey Johnston while bringing in the likes of Torbjoern Heggem, Uros Racic, and Lewis Dobbin.

The Baggies have fine-tuned what was already an impressive squad at Carlos Corberan's disposal and appear poised to compete for a return to the Premier League this term, having won three of their opening four matches in the Championship.

But, as history reveals, they have not always got it right in the transfer market, ending up with some real duds in years gone by. Therefore, Football League World has decided to take a deep dive into the five biggest transfer flops at the Hawthorns in recent years.

Oliver Burke

Oliver Burke is arguably the pick of the bunch in terms of disappointing and regrettable Albion transfers in recent history. With some of the players listed here, that does take some doing.

Burke exploded onto the scene with Nottingham Forest and made a left-field switch to Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig in August 2016. He lasted just twelve months in Germany before the Baggies looked to redeem his spark by shelling out £15m. He struggled to make any sort of impact in the Premier League and did not register a single league goal in the 2017/18 season.

He did not feature all that much in the Championship the following year, joined Celtic on loan in January, headed to Deportivo Alavaes the following season and the Baggies were finally able to cut their losses by sending him to Sheffield United on a permanent transfer in a swap deal which saw Callum Robinson go the other way.

The winger has scored just eight goals in four years and endured a goalless loan spell with Birmingham City as they were relegated from the Championship last term. West Brom will feel even more vindicated in letting him go to Bramall Lane, but perhaps, the regret from the deal only rings home even louder.

Brown Ideye

Meanwhile, Brown Ideye was perhaps not as disastrous as the signing of Burke but West Brom were still left to wonder what could have been - and what should have been, even, with their investment.

They paid a then-club record fee of £10m to lure Ideye away from Dynamo Kyiv in the summer of 2014. The Nigerian striker had been prolific in Ukraine but, like those before and after him, he failed to replicate such rich form at Albion.

Ideye lasted just one season at the Hawthorns, having scored four goals from 24 Premier League outings. He notably spurned some glorious chances which arguably cost them a place in the FA Cup semi-final that year too, and supporters were hardly sad to see him go when the club decided to cut their losses the following summer.

He was flogged to Olympiacos in August 2015 and has bounced around the globe, taking in spells in Greece, China, Spain, and Turkey. None of those stints, however, have offered any indication that West Brom may have been too hasty in sanctioning his departure and he is now without a club at the age of 35.

Kenneth Zohore

Kenneth Zohore is an exception to the aforementioned names in the sense that the move appeared destined to fail from the very start. There was shock from both fanbases when West Brom elected to sign Zohore from Cardiff for £8m in the summer of 2019, despite his stock having fallen somewhat.

Zohore was sensational for the Bluebirds in the 2016/17 campaign and scored 12 times along with laying on a further five assists, while he directly contributed to 14 goals in their subsequent promotion-winning season.

He had notably declined by then, though, and his career was on the way down after scoring just once all season as Cardiff were relegated from the Premier League.

Then-manager Neil Warnock pined for Zohore to succeed but was rather vocal about the Dane's application and effort, which explains why Cardiff were willing to let him go. However, there is little explanation as to why the Baggies ever decided to pay as much as they did.

Zohore only ever managed to score three times in the Championship from 19 appearances for the Baggies, most of which came in his first season. Just two goals were returned on loan at Millwall the following year and he barely featured for over a year and a half before seeing his contract terminated by mutual consent.

He has not scored a league goal in more than three years despite short-term spells with Odense and Slask Wrocław of the Polish top flight. The 30-year-old striker has been without a club since last December and it does not look like he is going to find a new home anytime soon.

Victor Anichebe

It is perhaps no coincidence that all but one of the players listed here are strikers, West Brom simply have not got it right over the years in their efforts to find a bagsman.

Victor Anichebe signed for West Brom for a fee that was said to potentially rise up to £6m after they had seen a £3.5m rejected by Everton for the Nigerian striker. Even that, though, would have probably been too much in light of his limited contributions for the club.

Anichebe had been a useful squad player for the Toffees but never managed to get going for Albion, scoring just six league goals across two seasons. Opportunities were more forthcoming than at Goodison Park as he played 55 times, but the goals never flowed.

He was released on a free transfer three years after his arrival. They received no return, both from a financial and footballing standpoint - and for that reason, Anichebe is a sure-fire inclusion here.

Zhang Yunin

Another pecuilar investment to finish us off, Zhang Yunin was signed in the summer of 2017 by then-owner Guouchan Lai for £6m but never played a single minute for the club.

The Chinese striker had been turning out for Vitesse Arnhem prior to his arrival in West Midlands, although he seldom featured - and failed to find the back of the net - in subsequent loan spells with Werder Bremen and Ado Den Haag.

Zhang, who has earned 30 caps and counting for the China national team - returned to his homeland less than two years later by signing for Beijing Guoan.

He has been there ever since and has played alongside the likes of Jonathan Viera, Cedric Bakambu and Renato Augusto, but it was a signing that never made sense at the time and makes even less sense now, given how much the Baggies paid only for him to never make an appearance.