[NathWBA]

I heard somewhere earlier today that vitesse had previously had bids of 10mill and 12mill euros, feared we may have spent a hefty amount on the lad, hopefully he comes good, he's 20 years old, played in the Dutch top flight and will hopefully get some game time in the bundesliga. The commercial prospects must be massive for us to make such an outlay.

[addy]

I heard somewhere earlier today that vitesse had previously had bids of 10mill and 12mill euros, feared we may have spent a hefty amount on the lad, hopefully he comes good, he's 20 years old, played in the Dutch top flight and will hopefully get some game time in the bundesliga. The commercial prospects must be massive for us to make such an outlay.

Werder Bremen sporting director on Twitter commented that Zhang had rejected big money moves to China.

With the cap in China on foreign imports the prices of top Chinese players is going to go through the roof. Even if Zhang turns out fairly average by our standards will still be able to get fairly decent fee for him considering he will still be way above the level of Chinese players.

The move is pretty smart in so many ways, also an intent from our Chairman that they do have some sort of plan and are not just sitting on their hands as it were.

[alex1]

It's obvioulsy not a coincedence that he's Chinese and we now have a Chinese owner. Normally, I would hope that a player is bought for 'footballing' reasons, and not for reasons to do with his nationality. However, as the fee has not come out of our transfer budget, then all well and good. Presumably Werder Bremen are paying his wages.
Werder Bremen is probably on a similar level to us, albeit slightly more entertaining than us at present, but that's not saying alot. They scored alot of goals last season, Gnabry getting a fair few. However, before we get our hopes up too much, Zhang didn't exactly set the Dutch league on fire last season with Vitesse.

[ex coseley kid]

It's obvioulsy not a coincedence that he's Chinese and we now have a Chinese owner. Normally, I would hope that a player is bought for 'footballing' reasons, and not for reasons to do with his nationality. However, as the fee has not come out of our transfer budget, then all well and good. Presumably Werder Bremen are paying his wages.
Werder Bremen is probably on a similar level to us, albeit slightly more entertaining than us at present, but that's not saying alot. They scored alot of goals last season, Gnabry getting a fair few. However, before we get our hopes up too much, Zhang didn't exactly set the Dutch league on fire last season with Vitesse.

I think the Chinese market and influence on The Greed League is going to be enormous in the next decade. Good player or not, cracking bit of marketing and PR. Get behind it.

Also.... let's just see, eh?

[Sted1990]

What an uninspiring and pointless bit of news. He'll never play for us. 2 year loan deal...FFS!
Rodriguez is an exciting but also highly risky signing.
The Wilson signing is disappointing as he's no good.
Huddlestone, Afobe and whoever else is also uninspiring. It's going to be a painful boring season. I don't even buy into 'well at last he'll keep us up' because I think he's pushing his luck now.
And yes I know the Chinese signing was done without even consulting TP.

Wow you must be fun at a party?!
Let's see where we are come the end of the window, we've done ok considering its day 3 

[TheBrom]

Obligatory goals video.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrz9gVoVxag

Ed: Having now watched the video there aren't actually that many goals in it  ..

Yeah definitely a bit of a weird video that. Think I counted 3 goals he scored and about 10 throw ins/corners won as well as a number of times he got the ball and gave it away with a poor pass (why are they even included in the video!). Was about as confused after watching that video as I am with us signing him!

[Standaman]

Whether he plays for us or not is almost entirely academic. Plainly he is a big name in China and as far as this deal is concerned that is all that matters. He's on loan for 2 years at Bremen during which time he will either prove his worth or he won't. If he tares up the Bundesliga we can get a work permit for him as a "unique talent" almost regardless of his caps or China's FIFA ranking if flops he can be sold back to China for at least what we paid for him purely on the strength of his national team performances.

We can't really lose and as others have pointed out this is all about raising the profile of the club in China

[B_H_Baggie]

http://www.scmp.com/sport/soccer/article/2101220/chinese-player-zhang-yunings-move-english-premier-league-side-west-brom?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Very interesting piece about the motives of us signing the lad.

[ashdoy]

http://www.scmp.com/sport/soccer/article/2101220/chinese-player-zhang-yunings-move-english-premier-league-side-west-brom?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

Very interesting piece about the motives of us signing the lad.

This is why at just 27 im starting to find disgust in football at the top levels.

I love the game of footbal, but the business side of it stinks.

We have Wolves & Jorge Mendes taking one of Europe's best young talents and dumping him in a second-tier league purely for the benefit of a greedy agent who wants to run the game, we have Albion simply signing a lad purely to create extra finances/marketing for an owner who obviously has massive plans for his home country, not to mention the obscene wages Villa are spending on JT.

Football has officially gone mad this summer, and i dont believe there will ever be a recovery from it.

[B_H_Baggie]

This is why at just 27 im starting to find disgust in football at the top levels.

I love the game of footbal, but the business side of it stinks.

We have Wolves & Jorge Mendes taking one of Europe's best young talents and dumping him in a second-tier league purely for the benefit of a greedy agent who wants to run the game, we have Albion simply signing a lad purely to create extra finances/marketing for an owner who obviously has massive plans for his home country, not to mention the obscene wages Villa are spending on JT.

Football has officially gone mad this summer, and i dont believe there will ever be a recovery from it.

The main positive I can see from the way things are going is that it has to be a mutually beneficial relationship between the club and Palm, they simply have to do all they can to keep us a Premier League club to get what they want out of their investment.

I see this move for Zhang as almost a no lose situation for the club even if he never plays for us. I know exactly what you mean though, football has become more entertainment rather than the competitive sport it was.

[Astle1968]

Has anyone got any idea of the sort of fee we paid for him?

All this messing about with Taylor for £1m or £2m max, a good young English player with the potential to be our left back for 5 or 6 years or be sold on for profit, and yet we will spend £1m on Wilson and potentially X amount more here?

[BaggieBirdRus]

Has anyone got any idea of the sort of fee we paid for him?

All this messing about with Taylor for £1m or £2m max, a good young English player with the potential to be our left back for 5 or 6 years or be sold on for profit, and yet we will spend £1m on Wilson and potentially X amount more here?

Lots of people are saying we paid €9 million for him

[Hunnington Baggie]

Has anyone got any idea of the sort of fee we paid for him?

All this messing about with Taylor for £1m or £2m max, a good young English player with the potential to be our left back for 5 or 6 years or be sold on for profit, and yet we will spend £1m on Wilson and potentially X amount more here?

suggests the issue is with Taylor, rather than the fee?

[MarkW]

Has anyone got any idea of the sort of fee we paid for him?

All this messing about with Taylor for £1m or £2m max, a good young English player with the potential to be our left back for 5 or 6 years or be sold on for profit, and yet we will spend £1m on Wilson and potentially X amount more here?

The money for this signing isn't part of the money that was allocated to Pulis for summer signings.

[BAGGIES4LIFE]

So we get this guy back in the last year of his contract when his value will probably have diminished
If he refuses a new contract from us then,and he has performed well in Germany having paid a reported £9 for him, (irrespective of where the money came from) we could end up with egg on our face if he prefers to go back and sign permanently for Werder Bremen for example.
I am a bit demused, anyone care to throw more light on this arrangement?

[Hunnington Baggie]

So we get this guy back in the last year of his contract when his value will probably have diminished
If he refuses a new contract from us then,and he has performed well in Germany having paid a reported £9 for him, (irrespective of where the money came from) we could end up with egg on our face if he prefers to go back and sign permanently for Werder Bremen for example.
I am a bit demused, anyone care to throw more light on this arrangement?

It's a 3+2 deal, according to China, so if he's good we activate and get 3 years from him rather than just 1

[BAGGIES4LIFE]

Ah cheers that makes a bit more sense! 👍🏽

[kirk]

The money for this signing isn't part of the money that was allocated to Pulis for summer signings.

And can I ask how you know that?

[Dexy]

And can I ask how you know that?

Was posted in the signing details on the O/S I believe , I saw it somewhere too.

[Singhwba]

And can I ask how you know that?

It says it on the official site when they announced the deal.

https://www.wba.co.uk/news/2017/july/albion-recruit-future-prospect-zhang/

Forth paragraph down:

"The Club have also made it clear that the investment sits outside the ring-fenced transfer budget for strengthening Albion's Premier League squad for the forthcoming campaign."

[caravanc58]

whether its from the transfer budget or not hasn't the money still come from club funds?
wouldn't people rather this money spent on players who improve us now rather than a commercial aspect

[Baggies]

It is a huge amount of money to pay for a player who is unlikely to have an impact on our first team, but hopefully the number crunchers in the club have worked out that this has huge potential to raise our profile in China (and if we want to generate a bigger following, then we need a Chinese fan base).

I just hope that this deal isn't there for the benefit of our owners rather than the club.

[B_H_Baggie]

I just hope that this deal isn't there for the benefit of our owners rather than the club.

Just like the Eco Town project they have used the club for this move has to be mutually beneficial really, I suppose it just depends who actually gets the most out of it as I reckon its Palm and the owners so far. I expect both 'projects' are more about the long term though rather than the club seeing much out of it in the immediate future.

[geoff]

This links shows the power YZ signing on the Chinese people.

 http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Global/Issues/2017/07/07/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Zhang-Yuning.aspx

[WD40]

Welcome to the club Zhang