West Brom owner Guochuan Lai could personally decide to offload Yuning Zhang in the future with the striker looking as though he might not ever play for the club, according to the Express & Star.
The newspaper claims that Lai paid £6million out of his own pocket to sign the 21-year-old last year, only for him to have been sent out on two ineffective loan spells with both Werder Bremen and ADO Den Haag.
Zhang made his first senior appearance since joining the Baggies over the weekend when he played for Den Haag in their 3-2 win over Zwolle on Saturday.
It is understood that Zhang cannot quality for a work permit to play for the Black Country club right now due to China’s lowly place in the FIFA World Rankings, so it seems as though he may not ever play in the blue and white stripes.
Good move for West Brom?
It will probably go down as one of the most bizarre signings ever made by the Baggies.
Lai could have put that £6million into the transfer budget for Tony Pulis to sign a player that could have kept West Brom up last season, but instead he used it to sign a Chinese player no one had ever heard of to possible just boost the club’s profile in the Far East.
If Zhang could play or was any good then fair enough, it would have been a good bit of business, but the 6ft 1 (transfermarkt) striker didn’t even get to play for Bremen last term and has only just recovered from an injury to play for a mid-table Eredivisie side.
Lai won’t get his £6million back but he needs to cut his losses.
This is Futbol rating 5/10
Likely to happen?
Lai will see that Zhang is failing and as Chinese Super League clubs are forced to lower the amount of money they spend on foreign imports, a cash-rich club could make a swoop to sign the nine-times international.
West Brom boss Darren Moore is unlikely to have a say in the matter, all of this nonsense has completely gone over the heads of everyone actually in the West Midlands.
This is Futbol rating 10/10