Huddersfield Town finally sold Karlan Grant to West Bromwich Albion last night for an undisclosed fee that is rumoured to be around £15m. It’s a transfer saga that has rumbled on for almost the entirety of this window so it’s a relief to be able to move on from this story and to talk about something else.
Before we do though, I’m going to take a look at who got the best out of this deal.
Karlan Grant
I’d say the most obvious winner is Grant himself. He’s signed a six-year deal at his new club which is a huge commitment from West Brom. Not only that, Grant is almost certainly going to be getting a massive pay rise out of this move.
I saw a rumour that he’ll be earning £60,000 a week at West Brom, which may not be true but if it’s remotely close to the figure he’s going to be paid then he’s tripled or even quadrupled his earnings.
While players are often derided as cut throat for leaving for more money, it’s hard to blame him for wanting to get such a massive increase in income. Most people would happily switch jobs in similar circumstances.
It’s also a good move for Grant because he’ll get another chance in the Premier League. He’s approaching his footballing peak and it’s natural to want to play at the highest level, so West Brom will provide him with that platform.
While early signs are that West Brom will struggle this season, they’re a good destination for him as he’s more likely to get game time than he would have at a team higher up the table.
West Brom
This isn’t a bad deal for West Brom. When you consider how much Aston Villa paid for Ollie Watkins, £15m is a decent price for a striker who’s been prolific at every level of English football. Watkins has more to his game than Grant to justify the steeper price tag but goals are an expensive commodity and Grant has the ability to deliver them.
I mentioned in an earlier post about Grant going to West Brom, it’s not clear he will immediately slot into West Brom’s central striker position. He played most of last season off the left flank and whenever he played through the middle he was poor. Admittedly, this was in a struggling team that provided him little service but he failed to hold up the ball or to link play when the front of a three, making him ineffective and frustrating to watch.
Surely West Brom’s scouting team have done their homework on Grant though and have a plan to accommodate him into their system that compliments his best attributes. If not he’ll most likely struggle, as most of his goals come from getting the ball on the left side of the penalty area, turning onto his right and shooting across the keeper.
Huddersfield Town
The story we were told was that the major delay in this deal was the structure of the payments. We don’t know exactly how Town will be paid by West Brom but it’s been widely rumoured on Twitter that we’ll be getting the fee spread evenly over six years.
While the club will have been hoping for a lump sum up front, I can’t say I’m all that bothered about this part of the deal. The overall amount seems fair and it may be that payments being spread out helps Huddersfield Town in the future when we no longer receive our parachute payments from the Premier League.
I know some fans wanted Huddersfield Town to put their foot down and insist that Grant stay but that would have been bad news for everyone involved. He’d be unlikely to produce his best football if we denied him a move and could lose value before the next transfer window.
Grant played poorly in the post-lockdown part of last season and looked disinterested in some games. His body language on the pitch suggested he was already thinking about his next move and wasn’t fully committed. We’d most likely have seen more of that if he’d played for us this season.
If we accept that Grant had to go then I think we’ve done fairly well to get £15m for him. He’s good at scoring goals in a very particular way but isn’t great at other areas of the game. His touch can let him down and he’s poor at holding the ball up. If he didn’t have a knack for scoring goals then there’s not a lot more he offers on the pitch. Concentrating exclusively on scoring goals used to be fine for strikers but in the modern game that kind of player can be an expensive luxury.
TerrierSpirit.com opinion on Grant’s exit
I’m glad to see the back of this situation and pleased for Grant that he’s got the move he wanted. His goals were vital to our survival last season and we’ve made a handsome profit on him, so there are no hard feelings from me.
I’m not certain Grant will go on to be a success at West Brom but I’ll be hoping he does well for them. If they play him in his preferred position and give him service then I’m certain he’ll score goals for them. If he has to play in a more central role then it’s less certain he’ll kick on and it may take time for him to adapt.
Now the deal is done it’s vital that Town look for a replacement who has a chance of replicating Grant’s success at Huddersfield Town. We’ll most likely have to rummage in the bargain bin and take a gamble but there’s a huge hole to fill. The early signs are that nobody currently on the books at Town is capable of stepping up to replace Grant sizer.
Who cares, it’s over and done with, lets get on with supporting the players who are left at the club and think more about the shirt
than perhaps themselves.
I think we all got pretty fed up with how long this transfer dragged on for. I just hope we’ve left ourselves enough time to bring in some new players now we’ve freed up some space on the wage bill.
Thank god that’s over its been going on longer than COVID!!! Lets move on and on a brighter note I’ve heard a rumour that ESR is coming home 🙂
Smith Rowe would be an amazing addition to the squad. Even though we’ve not been playing with a traditional number 10 role this season, he’s too good to turn down.
Your right about Grant he’s been a bit of a two-trick pony: coming in from the left and scoring with his right and taking penalties, although his last two weren’t too clever; he’s a confident lad though and could prove to be a bargain. The ESR rumour sounds a bit odd given what Arteta said abut him a couple or so months ago – unless he’s changed his mind? Is there a loan deadline today as well – can’t remember!!!
I think it’s the deadline for everything today. It might be nice to get some our youngsters loaned out to League One and Two to get some experience.
As much as I rare Smith Rowe, I’m not sure he’s ready fir Arsenal yet. After a season with us and he might be.
Glad to see the back of KG, he did not want to play for the club, well done Town for turning a profit,
not sure if Grant will be a success at WBA, but best of luck to him, looks like we could be in for the lad from NUFC, a front left player, thats ok if Carlos can fit him in to the system, everything else, we will know by 5pm this evening , lets hope Carlos’s style of play can get us a result at Swansea tomorrow. UTT
Aarons from Newcastle sounds like a potentially decent signing but is a bit of a gamble because of his injury record. Might be one that’s worth a gamble.
I think it will be tricky against Swansea but if we play well I think we could get something. We’ve still not properly hit our stride under Corberán but hopefully the international break has given him more time to get his ideas across.
Grants move was inevitable and we have had enough time to pinpoint one or more replacements, so I hope that someone decent comes through the door today. Not sure about ESR and not sure he would fit CC’s style. Still think someone who can play across all three forward positions is needed and it would be nice to get experience too. I will be very disappointed if we don’t make at least one quality signing.
Cayley Woodrow at Barnsley is the only player we’ve been linked with I’d class as a “quality signing” but I’m not convinced we could offer enough to tempt Barnsley to sell on the last day of the window. All the other targets are likely to be “projects” who need to rehabilitate their career or youngsters that haven’t proved themselves yet.
At least we’ll know by 5 o’clock tonight.
Bought Grant for 2m and sold him for 15m seems good business to me it will make up for all the bad deals town have done in in the last two seasons I hope Grant does well though in the premiership but personally I think he’ll struggle his control will unfortunately let him down
He’s young enough to get better but he did have a tendency to take a heavy touch when the ball came to him. He needs to start scoring quickly and then nobody will care about his weak areas.
Hope the rumours about Dave Nugent .from PNE are not true, we dont want. a 36yr. Old has been, might as well ask Frank Worthington.to dig his boots out, but when it’s Town you just never know. UTT.
Well it’s 1.5 hours passed the deadline and it’s been deathly quiet on the transfer front. Did Kongolo go? Have we signed a Preston discard and what about the young Newcastle winger? It’s looking like if there are to be additions it’ll have to be out of contract players. I understand Van La Parra is available!!