West Bromwich Albion were offered the chance to bring Ross Barkley to The Hawthorns on transfer deadline day.

What's the talk?

That's according to a claim made by Matt Law, with The Telegraph journalist revealing in a post on Twitter that Chelsea offered Valerien Ismael's side the chance to sign the central midfielder towards the end of the summer transfer window.

However, Law continued to state that, due to the 27-year-old's £110k-per-week wages, the Championship side could not justify sanctioning a move for the England international.

In his tweet, the journalist said: "West Brom were offered Barkley towards the end of the summer transfer window but his wages meant that was never likely to happen."

Would've been a huge coup

While, from a financial point of view, Barkley's enormous salary meant that West Brom's reluctance to sanction a move for the Chelsea man was probably the right decision by the club, it is undeniable that the signing of the midfielder would have been a huge coup for the Baggies.

While the £18m-rated man has struggled to ever really hold a starting spot down in the Blues first team since his £15.12m move to Stamford Bridge back in 2018, the 27-year-old demonstrated during a loan spell at Aston Villa last season that he is still very much a Premier League-level player.

Indeed, over his 26 top-flight appearances for Dean Smith's side last term, Barkley scored three goals, registered one assist and created six big chances for his teammates, as well as taking an average of 1.5 shots and making 1.6 key passes per game.

These returns saw the man Frank Lampard dubbed a "complete" midfielder earn a seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.87, ranking him as the club's joint 15th-best performer in the league.

As such, should the 33-cap international have made the step down to Championship football with West Brom this summer, it is not difficult to imagine the 27-year-old tearing up the league with Ismael's side, with his potential signing undoubtedly providing the Baggies' already strong promotion credentials with a significant boost.

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