The decision to let Grady Diangana go in the summer seemed a strange one at the time. Whilst he hadn’t become a first-team regular, there were signs he was ready to make the step up eventually.
Most fans wanted to keep him and see him develop with another season of Premier League football under his belt. Equally, there was a general acceptance that a season with West Brom would provide him with confidence and allow him to play regularly.
No-one, however, could have predicted how well he would’ve adapted to his new team.
Within six minutes of Championship football, he had scored two goals for his new club. Fast forward nearly two months and the England Under-21 winger has registered four goals and three assists.
If you look at West Brom fans’ responses to him on Twitter, you realise how well he is doing. Calls to sign him permanently and stop him from coming back to West Ham in January shows the level of his potential.
He has been pivotal in a number of games for them this season, showing that he isn’t a bit-part player influencing the game when the team is winning but rather a match winner.
His development under Slaven Bilic is frightening. In spells last season, he showed that he has a burst of pace and calmness in front of goal. For West Brom, he looks like he is confident to take on players and start shooting from outside the box. He looks to receive the ball and show his talent whenever given the chance.
It is a shame when after the Crystal Palace performance, West Ham look like they could do with an injection of pace and directness. This was always the risk when loaning out a player who had been in the first team and who had offered an outlet last season.
Manuel Pellegrini will be ruing his decision to send him out to the Championship. West Ham have been criticised for not having a back-up plan this season and Diangana looks to be that type of option that can cause defences problems.
At the moment, the play is too in front of the opposition. With teams like Crystal Palace, who are happy to sit in, West Ham can’t break down these teams and become clinical when creating chances.
Sometimes it takes a directness to win games. Grady Diangana is the perfect man to do that and fans will hope his return next season will see them with a strong back-up plan.
