West Brom nearly signed Aubameyang
Albion nearly signed lethal Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2011, the club’s former head of UK scouting has revealed.
Stuart White spent 15 years at the Baggies between 2000 and 2015 before he was let go shortly after Tony Pulis was made head coach.
He recommended Aubameyang when the striker was on loan at Saint-Etienne from AC Milan, and Albion nearly took him on a loan deal with a view to buy him for 2million euros.
But the forward – who has scored 72 goals in the last two seasons – failed to impress during a second game.
“I had been to Dijon on a Friday night to watch one player in particular, a centre forward who didn’t impress me at all,” White told Planet Football. “My ‘bonus game’ before flying home on the Sunday was Auxerre v Saint-Etienne on the Saturday night.
“Saint-Etienne drew the game 2-2, but Aubameyang and Emmanuel Riviere were tremendous as a pair.
“I came back raving about Aubameyang, and as luck would have it his agent called me the following week, probably because he’d got to know that I had been at the game.
“He was obviously calling many clubs, but the lad was then a Milan player on loan at Saint-Etienne and he was interested in coming to England.
“The outline deal was explained to me and it was clear that he was going to be affordable so I recommended that we pursued it.
“On the back of my shout, a few more of our scouts went out to watch him a week or two later and he scored an early goal against Sochaux in a 2-1 defeat but didn’t impress sufficiently on the night, which can happen. He then went back to Saint-Etienne, scored 21 in 45 and was subsequently sold to Dortmund for 13million euros. He would have been a free loan to us with a 2million euros fee tied into the deal had we taken him.”
White added: “I have to stress, every scout in the land will have a similar story and some may even have the exact same one, it happens.
“Numerous other players have been recommended but not come in. Many have gone elsewhere and been successful. At West Brom, we tended to identify them in the earlier stages of their careers before they took off.
“That’s key at clubs who can’t afford to pay top dollar, but even then, doing deals isn’t as easy as many people would assume. For example, we were very keen on Shinji Okazaki, but Mainz refused to sell him that summer. A year later he went to Leicester for a relatively modest fee and became a Premier League champion.”
