In an exclusive interview with Football FanCast, former West Brom midfielder Carlton Palmer has claimed that the Baggies have a future star in Grady Diangana.

The 22-year-old made his loan move permanent in the summer for a whopping £18m, leaving behind his boyhood club West Ham United.

Last season during Albion's promotion-winning campaign, the England U21 international provided eight goals and seven assists, per Transfermarkt.

And Palmer believes he could go onto become a player worth £40m to £50m but only on one condition, he told FFC:

"You can't go and spend 60 or 70 million on a player.

"Still, for West Brom, you know, 12 million with add-ons I think it goes up to 18 million. It's still a lot of money, but at least it's a young player who's only going to get better.

"And then at some point in the future, he might be worth £40m+ if he gets his head down and works hard."

Diangana has found the adjustment to life in the Premier League a little bit tricky, scoring just the one goal in eight appearances.

grady-diangana-scores-debut-west-brom

On Sunday afternoon, manager Slaven Bilic dropped him from the starting XI for the very first time this season before he came on for a 23-minute cameo against Spurs.

His numbers across the board have regressed with the step up in quality too, averaging fewer dribbles (1.6), shots (1.1) and key passes (0.5) per game, via WhoScored.

That form earlier in the year earned him high praise indeed with Michael Brown telling Football Insider that the English talent was "unplayable at times" but we're yet to truly see that in the big time.

He's evidently got a long way to go and as Palmer suggests, he's going to have to get his head down and work hard to do so.

But maybe in the future, the Baggies will have a mega-money star that they could well profit from having invested a considerable chunk of their budget on him this summer.

AND in other news, Exclusive: Chris Kirkland tips 66 y/o to replace Slaven Bilic...