West Brom willing to cut their losses on £8m flop star – The right decision by Bilic?

Why West Brom shouldn’t hesitate to offload Kenneth Zohore

According to The Telegraph (h/t Wales Online), West Brom are willing to cut their losses on flop striker Kenneth Zohore after securing promotion to the Premier League.

The 26-year-old struggled to make an impact at the Hawthorns as Slaven Bilic’s side finished second in the 2018-19 EFL Championship standings and Zohore’s future at the club could be in danger.

As per the report, the Baggies are also willing to listen to offers for out-of-favour left-back Kieran Gibbs and forward Oliver Burke, who spent the previous campaign on loan at Alaves in the La Liga, with Bilic eyeing a squad rebuild ahead of the upcoming Premier League campaign.

Profile

Zohore shot to prominence at Copenhagen in his homeland, Denmark, and had a yo-yo career in Italy, Sweden and Belgium before moving to English football with Cardiff City back in January 2016.

The 26-year-old was instrumental in Cardiff’s 2017-18 promotion-winning campaign in the EFL Championship but he jumped boats to join West Brom in an £8million deal back in the summer of 2019 after failing to deliver the goods in the Premier League.

Zohore’s woes at West Brom

West Brom’s capture of a proven Championship striker like Zohore looked exciting back then but the Dane has only flattered to deceive since completing his switch to the Midlands.

Zohore scored only thrice in 17 league outings (only 5 starts) for the Baggies in the second-tier last season, with two of his strikes coming from the penalty spot. 

In fact, the striker fell completely out of favour under Bilic and played a meagre 50 minutes of Championship football after January, with the manager showing a lot more faith in Charlie Austin and Hal Robson-Kanu to lead the attack.

Why the Baggies don’t need him anymore

West Brom scored 77 goals in the Championship en route their promotion-winning campaign, the second joint-best scoring record in the division alongside champions Leeds United. 

The Baggies had their goals shared evenly by the attackers. While Robson-Kanu and Austin bagged 10 apiece up top, the star loan duo of Grady Diangana and Matheus Pereira were also instrumental with several goals and assists.

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However, Zohore hardly made any significant contribution last season, while in his disappointing 2018-19 PL campaign with Cardiff, he scored just once in 19 appearances. This suggests that the Dane isn’t someone who can be relied upon to find the net on a consistent basis in the top-flight.

Verdict

It remains to be seen whether Bilic decides to bring in an upgrade on the likes of Austin and Robson-Kanu up top. Regardless of that, keeping Zohore on the books would hardly make any sense, especially with the Baggies now back in the Premier League.