Slaven Bilic felt West Bromwich Albion could – and should – have signed Celtic striker Albian Ajeti and Lazio’s Vedat Muriqi in summer 2019, as reported by The Athletic.
That the Baggies missed out on Bilic’s top striker targets didn’t matter much in the end, with West Brom securing promotion back to the Premier League during the Croatian’s first season at the helm.
But it seems disagreements over the club’s transfer policy was a common theme behind the scenes at the Hawthorns.
Bilic, who was sacked and replaced by Sam Allardyce yesterday, made his dissatisfaction painfully clear when experienced centre-half Ahmed Hegazi was farmed out to Al-Ittihad in the final few days of the summer transfer window.
The Sun, meanwhile, claims the former West Ham manager was frustrated by the amount of time it took to get £15 million man Karlan Grant through the door.
The former Huddersfield talisman didn’t arrive until five games into the season.
Interestingly, The Athletic claims Bilic wanted Ajeti and Muriqi at West Brom a year ago too. However, West Brom owner Guochuan Lai was said to have felt the Swiss and Kosovan internationals were both too expensive for a club operating on a Championship budget at the time.
Ajeti eventually joined West Ham for £5 million while Fenerbahce goal-machine Muriqi was snapped up by Lazio in a £17 million deal.
Neither has set the world alight since those big-money moves, however. Ajeti is now at Celtic after flopping in the Premier League and Muriqi has yet to score in eight appearances for the Serie A powerhouses.
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