A seven-figure transfer fee, a relegation to his name and now a surprise omission from Slaven Bilic’s matchday squad.
Things aren’t going to plan for Kieran Gibbs at West Brom.
The 31-year-old was sent off against Everton last month and despite being eligible to return against Burnley on Monday night, the Albion boss instead started Conor Townsend and named Dara O’Shea on the bench.
“It was selection. With Dara, we can cover both positions as a full-back. With Kieran, of course, he is a quality player and I expect him to prove in training like every other guy in the squad and only the performance in training will get players closer to the starting XI or the bench,” said Bilic after the 0-0 draw.
The Baggies recorded their first clean sheet of the season, so the veteran left-back may find it even more difficult to break back into the lineup, so perhaps there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Gibbs cost the Midlands outfit £7m back in the summer of 2017, which took Tony Pulis’ brash spending to a total of £38m following the arrivals of Jay Rodriguez, Ahmed Hegazi and Oliver Burke.
He is thought to also be on a whopping £55k-per-week contract, though fortunately that is set to expire at the current campaign.
It means West Brom have thrown around £16m down the drain to this day and that’ll increase by the time the season draws to a close in 2021.
During his three years at the Hawthorns, Gibbs has racked up 91 appearances but could only start 14 league matches during their promotion-winning run due to injuries and not being selected.
His latest snub could well be the last straw with Townsend and O’Shea both impressing Bilic in recent times.
That move by Pulis is certainly now looking like a catastrophically bad decision. In return for that £18m, Albion have received a relegation and a plethora of injuries.
AND in other news, West Brom lightweight who LOST possession 30 TIMES badly let Bilic down…