West Brom: £6m Guochuan Lai signing that played 0 minutes was one to forget - View | OneFootball

They may have missed out on promotion to the Premier League via the Championship play-offs, but the 2023/24 season proved to be a significant one in other ways for West Brom.

Back in February, it was confirmed that Florida-based businessman Shilen Patel had completed his takeover of the Baggies.

In doing so, Patel replaced Chinese investor Guochuan Lai as the club's owner and chairman at The Hawthorns.

It was a deal most West Brom fans had been waiting a long time for, with the club having found itself facing a far from secure financial situation under Lai.

Indeed, that even meant that the Baggies did not spend a single transfer fee during the 2023/24 season.

However, that restriction on investment in the transfer market under Lai, had not always been the case at West Brom.

Zhang Yuning was a big money signing for West Brom, made by Guochuan Lai

Back in the summer of 2017, around a year after Lai had completed his takeover of the club, one signing made by the Baggies, was that of Zhang Yuning.

The striker joined West Brom - who at the time had just finished tenth in the Premier League - for a fee that was later reported to be worth around £6 million.

The China international arrived at The Hawthorns after a two-year spell with Vitesse Arnhem, where he scored just four goals in 27 appearances in all competitions for the Dutch top-flight side.

As a result, there would have been an argument that in signing Yuning, who was 20-years-old at the time, Lai and West Brom were taking something of a gamble.

In the end, the way things played out means that it was a gamble that most certainly did not pay off for the Baggies.

Zhang Yuning never made an impact for West Brom

Immediately after signing for West Brom on a three-year deal, Yuning was sent out on a loan to Germany, in a deal that saw him join Werder Bremen for the subsequent two years.

However, Yuning never managed a single appearance in Bremen colours, even making it onto the bench on a handful off occasions.

As a result, in what may have been an ominous sign for the Baggies, the striker saw his loan stint cut short after just a single season in the Bundesliga in the summer of 2018.

Yuning would not be back at West Brom for long though, with the striker returning to the Netherlands to sign for ADO Den Haag on a season-long loan just a week after his stint in Germany had ended.

On this occasion, the striker was at least able to get on the pitch, managing six appearances for the club, after being sidelined by injury in the early months of that campaign.

However, he failed to score in those outings, and by February 2019, his loan spell with Den Haag, and time as a West Brom player would come to an end.

With his stint in the Netherlands being cut short, that allowed Yuning to secure a permanent departure from the Baggies just days later, when he was sold to Beijing Guoan in his native China.

He is still with the club now, and unlike his period in Europe, the striker has been able to enjoy some prolific form in front of goal since that move.

With regards to his time at West Brom though, that has long since come to an end with him having not played a single minute of competitive football with the club, and having spent most of that time out on loan elsewhere.

Given those loans meant he was barely even around the club for his absence from the side to be discussed, you could well forgive any Baggies fans who do not remember that Yuning was even of the club's players at one point.

As a result, it is hard not to feel as though this was one piece of business from Lai's period at West Brom, that can be looked back on as one that simply did not work out, without any shadow of a doubt.