West Brom had a nightmare in Kieran Gibbs deal | OneFootball

After joining West Bromwich Albion in a £6.75m deal back in the summer of 2017, Baggies fans may well have believed Kieran Gibbs would go on to become their club’s first-choice left-back for a fair few seasons.

This proved to be the case initially, with the 32-year-old going on to make 33 Premier League appearances in his debut season at The Hawthorns, helping his side keep seven clean sheets but earning a rather disappointing seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.78 on the way to Albion’s relegation from the top flight.

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The former England international’s level of performance picked up somewhat over his 36 Championship appearances in the following campaign, helping the Baggies keep five clean sheets, scoring four goals and registering four assists, in addition to averaging an improved SofaScore match rating of 6.84 – ranking him as the club’s joint 12th-best performer in the second tier.

However, with West Brom having signed fellow left-back Conor Townsend in the summer of 2018, the younger man clearly started to impress at Palm Training Ground, as he limited Gibbs to just 14 Championship appearances in 2019/20 – over which the £30k-per-week defender once again disappointed, receiving a seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.76.

Townsend’s usurping of the man who Slaven Bilic once dubbed a “stupid” player came full circle last season, with Gibbs featuring in just ten Premier League fixtures, before being released on a free transfer this summer.

Was Gibbs worth the £13m outlay for Albion?

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As such, considering the fact that Albion paid a rather hefty fee for the left-back, in addition to him costing the club a whopping £6.24m in wages over his four-year contract at The Hawthorns, the Baggies’ investment in Gibbs looks to have been something of a nightmare for the West Brom board.

Indeed, it would be a difficult argument to make that the former Arsenal defender’s contributions during his time in West Bromwich warranted even half of the club’s total outlay on the defender, let alone the near-£13m he actually cost the Championship side.