With Brandon Thomas-Asante leaving to join Coventry City, West Bromwich Albion’s attacking line-up
looked weaker than it should have, raising concerns among supporters ahead of the 2017 Championship campaign.
Now that Josh Maja has emerged as Carlos Corberan’s table-topping leading man in attack after he recovered from an injury-plagued debut season at the Hawthorns, those worries have all but vanished.
Corberan, who scored again for the West Midlands team last weekend against Wayne Rooney’s Plymouth Argyle, could only hope that those injury nightmares don’t return to bother him in the future.
Maja’s season opening
The goal-averse 25-year-old, who scored just one Championship goal in 12 games the previous season, has scored six goals this season from as many league appearances, as second-tier defenses are starting to buckle under the clinical play of the Baggies number nine.
After new summer addition Uros Racic laid it on a platter for the 5 foot 11 forward to win the close match deep into the second half-hour, he only needed 26 touches of the ball to tap in the winner against the visitors from Devon.
The fact that Maja’s injury difficulties have now resolved will make West Brom very happy. However, the promotion-chasing team will soon need to show the same patience with Daryl Dike, who is currently returning to self-training after an extended absence from the Hawthorns treatment room.
Even if Corberan’s team has clearly prevailed with Maja thus far, the Baggies will continue to be troubled by a bungled deal from four years ago, as the striker in question—who was once very much on West Brom’s radar—is now reportedly worth an incredible £40 million.
When Ivan Toney was not acquired by West Brom
Darragh MacAnthony, the chairman of Peterborough United, and Luke Dowling spoke on talkSPORT earlier this year how West Brom turned down the opportunity to acquire Ivan Toney, an EFL sharpshooter, in 2020 for a mere £10 million, despite Brighton & Hove Albion and Celtic being interested at the same time.
“We did have a conversation with them about the great Ivan Toney, which you look back on,” said Dowling. Looking back, you would say, “I would pay that all day long” [£10 million charge].
“At the time, we believed that we had just been promoted to the Premier League and lacked the courage to sign a player from League One. Will he score enough goals for us to win the league? The timing wasn’t appropriate.”
After a goal-filled few seasons in Cambridgeshire, he more than proved he could handle the demands of the top flight when he moved on to Brentford, scoring an incredible 72 goals for the Bees in 141 games.
While Toney continued to develop under Thomas Frank’s direction—the Brentford manager even called the senior England international “remarkable” last year when talking about his rise with the team—West Brom found it difficult to be a threat in attack in the Premier League after losing out on the deadly finisher, and at the end of the 2020–21 season, they were immediately demoted back to the second division.
