West Brom must be relieved Dwight Gayle reunion never materialised: View | OneFootball

The Baggies missed out on re-signing one loan star, but that may not be the worst thing with what's happened since

The 2018/19 season ended in agonising circumstances for those of a West Bromwich Albion persuasion.

Following their relegation from the Premier League in the previous campaign, the Baggies were looking to win an immediate promotion back to the top-flight an English football.

After finishing fourth in the regular season in the Championship, they would get the chance to do that via the play-offs.

However, after a 2-2 draw on aggregate, they were knocked out in the semi-finals after a 4-3 penalty shootout defeat to local rivals Aston Villa.

One player who may have felt particularly hard done by with West Brom missing out on promotion that season, was Dwight Gayle.

Newcastle United loanee shone at The Hawthorns

Back in the summer of 2018, Gayle had moved to the Baggies on loan from Premier League side Newcastle United.

The striker went on to produce an outstanding individual campaign to help the club secure that place in the play-offs.

In total, he scored 24 goals and provided eight assists in 41 appearances during his year with West Brom.

So while they did not win promotion that season, it is no surprise that then Baggies manager Slaven Bilic would confirm the club did try to sign Gayle permanently the following summer.

Ultimately though, they were unsuccessful in those attempts, with the striker having never since returned to The Hawthorns to play for the club.

Given the individual success of his loan spell, you could understand it if West Brom fans had been disappointed at the time that such a reunion did not happen.

However, when considering how things have gone since then, it could be argued that the fact that deal was never completed, could in fact be a good thing for the Baggies.

Dwight Gayle has struggled since his West Brom loan

After an immediate return to The Hawthorns failed to materialise for Gayle in the summer of 2019, the striker instead remained at Newcastle for the next three years.

That though, would prove to be a difficult period for the striker, as he struggled with fitness and form, which led to him dropping down the pecking order.

In the end, across the three years he played for the Magpies after returning from his loan spell with West Brom, he scored just five goals in only 51 appearances in all competitions for the club.

Eventually departing St James' Park permanently, Gayle returned to the Championship to link-up with Stoke City in the summer of 2022, signing a two-year deal with the Potters.

However, he was unable to rediscover the form at that level he had previously shown for West Brom.

The striker again found goals hard to come by for the Potters, scoring just three times in a total of 50 appearances for Stoke.

As a result, his contract was terminated several months early by mutual consent in February 2024, in what felt like a clear reflection of how his time with the club had gone.

Having secured his departure from the Potters, Gayle then headed to League One to join Derby County for the final few months of last season.

There, he did find some improvement in form for the striker, as he scored three times in six outings, to help the Rams secure promotion back to the Championship.

However, with his short-term contract at Pride Park expiring this summer, Gayle was not handed a new deal by Derby, for their return to the second-tier.

Consequently, the 34-year-old is now still a free agent, and so it seems as though the fact West Brom did not bring him back in the summer of 2019 may not be the worst thing.

At that point, Gayle's stock will have been high, and with the length of his contract at Newcastle at the time, he would likely not have been a cheap signing for the Baggies.

So had they paid the fee needed in order to sign him permanently, only for his struggles with fitness and form to go the way they did, it could have been costly in a number of ways.

Not only might he have struggled to reproduce his form from his loan spell with West Brom - as he did elsewhere - it would also have made it hard for them to get a return on their investment.

With that in mind, it seems that despite the fair initial disappointment about missing out Gayle, there is a chance not getting that deal done, might not be as costly for West Brom as may have initially been thought.