West Brom must regret AC Milan transfer miss – He would become £56m Arsenal record breaker
West Brom have had some fantastic players represent the blue and white stripes through the years, but there have also been situations where some deals have slipped through the club’s fingers.
The Baggies had a glorious eight-year stay in the Premier League between 2010 and 2018, establishing themselves as top-flight regulars as they improved their squad season-upon-season.
But one player who got away on the transfer front was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who was close to linking up at The Hawthorns, but a deal never got over the line.
With Aubameyang going from strength to strength and showcasing his goalscoring talent at the top levels of English football, it is sure to be a case of what could have been had Albion managed to secure his signature all those years ago.
As per a report from the Express & Star back in 2017, West Brom’s former scout, Stuart White, revealed how he recommended Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the club when the striker was on loan at Saint-Étienne from AC Milan in 2011, with Albion nearly taking him on a loan deal, with a view to buy him for €2 million.
White spent 15 years at the Baggies between 2000 and 2015 before he was let go shortly after Tony Pulis was made head coach.
White said: “I had been to Dijon on a Friday night to watch one player in particular, a centre forward who didn’t impress me at all,” White told Planet Football. “My ‘bonus game’ before flying home on the Sunday was Auxerre v Saint-Étienne on the Saturday night.
Saint-Étienne drew the game 2-2, but Aubameyang and Emmanuel Riviere were tremendous as a pair.
“I came back raving about Aubameyang, and, as luck would have it, his agent called me the following week, probably because he’d got to know that I had been at the game.
“He was obviously calling many clubs, but the lad was then a Milan player on loan at Saint-Étienne and he was interested in coming to England.
“The outline deal was explained to me, and it was clear that he was going to be affordable, so I recommended that we pursued it.
“On the back of my shout, a few more of our scouts went out to watch him a week or two later, and he scored an early goal against Sochaux in a 2-1 defeat but didn’t impress sufficiently on the night, which can happen. He then went back to Saint-Étienne, scored 21 in 45 and was subsequently sold to Dortmund for €13 million. He would have been a free loan to us with a €2 million fee tied into the deal had we taken him.”
