After falling short in the Championship playoff semi-finals last season, West Bromwich Albion are looking to bolster Carlos Corberan’s squad as they aim to go one better in the upcoming campaign.
Baggies braced for big summer rebuild
After last summer saw their transfer activity limited by financial sanctions, West Brom can finally put their ownership struggles behind them and splash the cash this summer.
The Baggies have already managed to get a couple of deals over the line with their first signing of the summer coming in the form of midfielder Ousmane Diakite. The 23-year-old was most recently at Austrian Bundesliga side TSV Hartberg and joins the club on a two-year deal with an option for a further twelve months.
West Brom’s second arrival of the summer was Norwegian defender Torbjorn Heggem who joins the West Midlands outfit in a move from Swedish topflight side Brommapojkarna. The Baggies have also been reportedly linked with a move for Huddersfield Town star Sorba Thomas who played under Coberan during the Spaniard’s tenure with the Terriers.
With the Baggies lining up a number of new arrivals, it appears that players could also depart the club this summer. Two candidates who have been linked with an exit from The Hawthorns are midfielders John Swift and Okay Yokuslu. The former has been linked with a move to Middlesbrough whilst the latter has attracted interest from both Hull City and clubs in his native Turkey.
As Corberan’s current midfield stars attract interest from other clubs, West Brom are already looking towards who they can bring in to replace them.
West Brom plotting Cameron Brannagan move
If Yokuslu and Swift are to depart this summer, it appears that Oxford United’s Cameron Brannagan is a likely candidate to fill the void in the middle of the park. That’s according to the X account of Football Insider’s Pete O’Rourke who claims that West Brom and Blackburn are both plotting moves for the midfielder, who is in the final year of his contract at the Kassam Stadium.
A product of Liverpool’s youth academy, Brannagan, 28, was once thought to be the next big thing out of Anfield after excelling in the Reds’ youth sides. The midfielder was even previously linked with moves to Real Madrid and Barcelona back in the summer of 2016, although neither of these rumours ever materialised.
Despite never reaching the heights of European superstardom, Brannagan has carved out a decent career for himself at Oxford, playing a key part in his side’s promotion to the Championship last season. The midfielder joined Oxford in January 2018 with then manager Pep Clotet saying of the player:
“Cameron is a player with huge potential and someone that a lot of clubs have been monitoring for a long time. He has excellent technique, a good understanding of game and a real hunger to do well”.
With the future of some of the Baggies’ top stars looking uncertain, the club could do a lot worse than bringing in an established EFL talent like Brannagan.
