West Ham United’s history in the transfer market is littered with mistakes and misfires, though David Moyes’ tenure has birthed a period of consistency that reached its apex last June with triumph in the Europa Conference League.
Greater accuracy in the market has coincided with the emergence of Declan Rice, who graduated from the club’s academy before completing 245 senior appearances and playing a pivotal part in the club’s growth before completing a £105m transfer to Arsenal last summer.
While Ben Johnson plays for Moyes’ first team and a rich crop of teenage talent pushes for a regular place at present, homegrown breakthroughs have been few and far between, with perhaps the most thrilling to take the stage (barring Rice) Grady Diangana, a fleet-footed and artful winger.
There was quite the buzz surrounding Diangana’s prospects, but West Ham made the contentious decision to cash in right when he was on the cusp of prominence…
Why West Ham sold Grady Diangana
It was 2020. Moyes had just navigated away from relegation danger after returning to West Ham midway through the 2019/20 campaign and was set on building the squad.
Diangana was a promising player but, with an overload of wide players following Jarrod Bowen’s £22m arrival from Hull City in January 2020, it became clear that cashing in on Diangana, one of the club’s most saleable assets, might be the right move, albeit unpopular.
The club had anticipated Rice’s sale but Chelsea, who let the player go from Cobham during his formative years and held a vested interest in recovering his signature, were not in a position to launch a bid for what would have been an expensive acquisition, and so Diangana was the apt alternative
And so, well-known admirers West Bromwich Albion were handed an inroad and secured Diangana’s services for a fee approaching £18m in September 2020, leaving Irons captain Mark Noble incensed.
Understandably, Noble was concerned about the sale of a player who had burst onto the scene and been praised by the likes of pundit Paul Merson for looking “very good going forward”, with his partnership with Marko Arnautovic particularly catching the eye.
Still, for all the noise surrounding his departure, hindsight suggests that West Ham actually pulled off something of a blinder in cashing in when they did, with the DR Congo international suffering quite the depreciation over the past few years
Furthermore, funds raised were directed toward the signings of players such as Vladimir Coufal, Tomas Soucek and, more directly, Said Benrahma.
All three of those stars have played big parts in the illustrious journey of recent years, and Diangana, conversely, has been mired in the Championship and fluctuating in performance for his current club.
Grady Diangana’s market value in 2024
Diangana has now racked up 156 appearances for West Brom, scoring 22 goals and providing 16 assists for his teammates, with his ebb and flow in performance suggesting that maybe West Ham were right to place the player on the market.
He hit the ground running at the Hawthorns and plundered eight goals and seven assists across 31 fixtures in the 2019/20 Championship term, with his efforts as a loanee convincing the Midlands club to move ahead with a risky outlay.
Risky it might have been but Diangana’s goal contributions were pivotal in a campaign that saw the Baggies clinch promotion to the Premier League, though it was a short return the following year as a timid effort culminated in a bottom-placed finish.
Diangana didn’t offer much, scoring once and failing to add any assists across his 20 outings, with the West Ham pathos over the winger’s sale quickly morphing into the acceptance that the powers that be engineered a shrewd deal, especially given Moyes’ first full term at the helm resulted in a sixth-place finish and a route into Europe. The rest, as they say, is history.
To emphasise Diangana’s stark decline and West Ham’s success in cashing in while they did, Football Transfers’ valuation model currently marks the 25-year-old at just £2m, which makes for a shocking 89% nosedive in value.
Grady Diangana’s season in numbers
In fairness, Diangana has been electric – if inconsistent – under Carlos Corberan’s management and has chalked up seven goals and five assists from just 22 starting roles in the second tier this season, with West Brom chasing down a return to the big-time once again.
His comparative prolificness somewhat clouds over some mediocre showings, however, with Diangana averaging just 0.7 tackles and 2.3 ball recoveries per game while succeeding with only 43% of his dribbles and 42% of his contested duels, as per Sofascore.
Given Diangana’s up-and-down form over the past several seasons, if West Brom do manage to achieve promotion to the Premier League there is no promise that he will find himself thriving, not quite boasting the ambit of qualities needed. Moreover, his record of one goal and one assist across 37 showings in the top flight is hardly awe-inspiring.
Ultimately, West Ham pulled off a blinder in completing Diangana’s sale when they did, and while it was met with a unison of disapproval, the London club has since moved through the gears to cement itself as a major player not only in the Premier League but on the continent.
With the likes of Bowen, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paqueta some of the wide forwards plying their trade on Moyes’ flanks right now, it really is hard to make a case that Diangana would be performing as a prominent member.
