By Daniel Wood
Rumours have been circulating since January that suggests West Bromwich Albion want to sign Karlan Grant from Huddersfield Town. Back then, Grant stayed put to help the Terriers with the relegation fight.
West Brom submitted their first official bid for Grant this week, which in the end was rejected by Huddersfield Town.
The Baggies are said to be strongly interested in bringing Grant to the Premier League, but Town are holding out for £16m before they let their striker leave the Terriers. Grant signed for Town from Charlton Athletic for only £2m back in January 2019.
West Brom finished 2nd in the Championship last season and gained promotion to the Premier League. Slaven Bilic is said to be keen to add more firepower to his team for their first season back in the top flight after two seasons battling in the Championship.
Grant has scored 23 goals in all competition from 57 games for the Terriers since joining in January 2019. He was the club’s top goal scorer last season and was the 5th top goal scorer in the whole of the Championship with 19 goals.
The striker often featured as a left-winger for Town during the last season and he still has two years left on his current contract.
New Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan admitted earlier this summer that he hopes that Grant will stay at the John Smith’s Stadium, but he was aware of the possibility that Grant may exit the club.
Corberan understood why clubs might want to sign him this summer due to the high impact that he had on the Terriers 2019/20 campaign.
In West Brom’s case, they did not have a goal scorer last season that got over 10 goals, with both Hal Robson-Kanu and Charlie Austin both scoring 10 league goals each. Neither of them broke into the top 24 goal scorers of the Championship last season.
This is a solid reason for Slavan Bilic to sign Karlan Grant, as he attempts to add more goalscorers to his team. 22-year old Grant could be the perfect solution for the Baggies.
Losing Grant would obviously be a huge blow for Huddersfield. The signing of Danny Ward was a decent pick up for Town, but it would be expected that they would try their hand at getting another player as a direct replacement for Grant if he were to move.