Revealed! West Brom Didn’t See £10m Record Signing Ideye in Flesh Before Giving Him Contract

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News, Sports News Friday, July 25th, 2014

West Brom boss Alan Irvine admits never having seen Super Eagles striker Brown Ideye in the flesh before making him the club’s £10million record signing.

The Baggies’ previous biggest spend of £6m on Stephane Sessegnon was broken by the fee paid to Dynamo Kiev for Ideye last week.

But Irvine, who has ‘’100% faith in the club’s scouting system’’ admitted he has only watched his new star signing on DVD, with Albion scouts instead having watched the 25-year-old.

And he has now urged the striker to emulate the feats of fellow Nigerian, Peter Odemwingie – for the right reasons.

Odemwingie became a target for the Baggies boo boys following his public fall-out with the club, yet he remains the club’s all-time leading Premier League scorer with 30 goals.

Irvine said: “It would be fantastic if he could have the same impact as Peter Odemwingie did.

“I don’t know much about Brown Ideye – I’ve not seen him live, but people we trust have done.

“It’s not necessarily something that is detrimental to me not to have seen him live, though ideally I would like to because that’s how I like to do my work.

“But we’ve done our research on him and what we have done is found decent players in the past in this way.”