Championship outfit Nottingham Forest could reportedly hand ex-West Bromwich Albion striker Brown Ideye a second chance in England.
It is fair to say history won’t look too fondly on Brown Ideye’s single season at West Bromwich Albion.
24 games, four Premier League goals and the £10 million record signing was heading out the door, just one year after arriving at The Hawthorns.
But, while the Nigerian didn’t quite live up to the standards set by compatriots Kanu and Yakubu on English shores, he has a range of attributes which make him pretty much tailor-made for the pace and power of British football.
Just ask Alan Irvine, the much-travelled coach who was working at West Brom when Ideye made West Brom history six years ago.
“Brown is a quality striker,” the former Blackburn, Newcastle, Everton and Sheffield Wednesday coach told the Baggies official website.
“He’s a strong, quick, powerful player who likes to get in behind defences and has plenty of Champions League and international experience.”
Brown didn’t show much of that ‘quality’ at West Brom, barring a short-lived purple patch around the start of 2015, but there is a reason why Nottingham Forest are keen to offer the now-31-year-old a second chance in England (Express and Star).
Regardless of which division Forest find themselves in next season, head coach Sabri Lamouchi knows that finding a man capable of easing the goal-scoring burden on top scorer Lewis Grabban is pretty much non-negotiable.
‘Strong, quick, powerful’ – those are three skills every striker needs if they are to adapt to life in Britain.
And maybe Nottingham Forest, with their counter-attacking style and aggressive wing play, can coax the best out of a hard-working striker who never managed to live up to such lofty expectations at West Brom.
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