Sometimes in football there is the odd transfer story that makes you double-take and rub your eyes to make sure you’re not seeing things.

West Brom have had their fair share of these over the years; an unknown striker called Brown Ideye costing a club-record fee, an even more unknown forward called Zhang Yuning costing £6m and rejecting a £22m bid for Saido Berahino.

However, despite a fair share of transfer shockers at The Hawthorns, few were more baffling than their decision to spend £6m on Victor Anichebe during Steve Clarke's time in charge.

Now, the signings of Ideye and Yuning you can excuse - one was quite clearly a miscalculated gamble while the other reeked of a commercial stunt.

Watch West Bromwich Albion Videos With StreamFootball.tv Below

But spending £6m on a striker who’d scored 18 Premier League goals in 131 games is simply mind-boggling.

Anichebe was one of those strikers who just couldn't find the back of the net, and it should have come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that he continued to falter in front of goal in the Midlands.

Six goals in 55 appearances for a centre-forward is pretty abysmal, and even if his game was built more around hold up play and helping his teammates, his assist record wasn't all that either - laying on just six set up.

And you could see this coming a mile off. He may have just come off the back of a season that saw him net six league goals, but that was and still is the best return for a campaign in his entire career.

In the end, Anichebe cost the Baggies £1m per league goal before the club allowed him to leave on a free transfer, putting an end to one of the least prolific spells The Hawthorns had ever seen from a striker.

Some transfers backfire after the player arrives, but this one was likely to fail from the very beginning.

In other news, West Brom need to replace these two players this summer.

sheffield-wednesday-loanee-josh-windass
sheffield-wednesday-loanee-josh-windass
sheffield-wednesday-loanee-josh-windass
sheffield-wednesday-loanee-josh-windass