West Brom: £2.5m game-changer made deadline day headlines with failed exit | OneFootball

The story of the Baggies fan favourite who managed to tarnish his legacy after being involved in the most infamous deal to never happen.

With deadline day fast approaching, few can forget West Brom's involvement in one of the most infamous deadline deals never to happen.

Despite the financial restrictions that have shackled the club in transfer windows gone by, historically, West Brom managed to make a mark as a small but mighty force in the season of transactions, scouting shrewd, low-budget additions that have outperformed their price tags.

Few better demonstrate this success than West Brom's 2010 £2.5m summer signing, Peter Odemwingie.

The Uzbek-born forward joined The Hawthorns at a pivotal point in the club's history when the recently promoted second-tier side were desperate to make a mark in the top-flight and become one of its perennial players, a feat the club had not managed since 2004 when the Black Country Baggies managed a two-season stay in the division.

But if the club were going to sustain a Premier League place, they'd need to find more than the mere 36 goals that saw the side return to the second tier as the stragglers of the 2008/09 season.

However, inside that £2.5m package West Brom paid to Lokomotiv Moscow was the answer to that problem.

The Super Eagle striker hit the ground running in a way no Baggie ever expected, scoring on his debut in the blue and white stripes and went onto contribute 15 goals and nine assists that saw the side coast to safety with time to spare and, as a bonus, achieve their highest-ever finish in the Premier League at 11th for the season. Odemwingie also achieved his own accolade, finishing fifth in the season's scoring charts.

Odemwingie quickly became a major fans' favourite who had the affinity of the whole of The Hawthorns in his hands, something that sustained the Baggies' patience when the Nigerian's numbers dropped slightly the following year.

The flying forward faltered slightly in the 2011/12 season, only managing to score 11 goals and provide four assists in a blue and white shirt, but fans quickly forgave the drop in form after three of the forward's goals came in Albion's iconic 5-1 hammering of bitter Black Country rivals Wolves, a moment etched in Albion memories for a lifetime.

As the side bettered their aforementioned 11th-place finish, breaching the top half of the table in 10th, the Baggies were bouncing and Odemwingie had cemented himself as the shining light of the West Brom squad and a modern-day hero. However, in the span of a now-storied night, all of that would change.

A summer striking acquisition tore apart the league and cast a shadow over Odemwingie

West Brom's start to the 2012/13 season quickly showed the side had little intention of returning to a battle just to sustain their stay in the division.

The Hawthorns welcomed Liverpool on the opening day but Baggies, under newly appointed boss Steve Clarke, quickly made an impression against the Scotsman's former side, blowing the Reds away 3-0.

Odemwingie looked to pick up where he left off as Albion's most potent attacking threat after an opening-day goal against the Reds, but it wasn't the Super Eagle to steal the headlines, but Baggies' Belgian summer signing, Romelu Lukaku.

West Brom had secured the 19-year-old's services on a temporary spell from Chelsea, and perhaps even quicker than Odemwingie managed to, Lukaku caught the eye of everyone around The Hawthorns when he also found the net against Liverpool after coming on for a cameo.

After this brief deployment, the Belgian's physicality and fierce potency in front of goal became indispensable for Clarke and his brand of football, quickly becoming the Scotsman's primary port of call in the goalscoring department, casting a shadow over Odemwingie.

Finding the net just four times before the season hit January, the Super Eagle's spell as flavour of the month had well and truly come to a close and, with Odemwingie dissatisfied at being deployed sparingly from the sidelines, rumblings of the Nigerian's unhappiness had caught the attention of this season's stragglers QPR, and thus began the most infamous transfer never to be completed.

Odemwingie ostracised himself and took his future in his own hands

As the January window entered its business end, many were surprised Odemwingie remained a West Brom player, but Clarke was reluctant to let the striker leave after he broke the record as Albion's highest-ever goalscorer in the Premier League.

But despite the sentiment, Odemwingie remained determined for a move away from The Hawthorns and was left livid after QPR's £2m bid failed to be enough to tempt the Baggies into an exit after they also rejected the Nigerian's transfer request.

An uncommon affair during his time as a Baggies player, Odemwingie took to social media to complain about his mistreatment by the club in another attempt to force a move.

The Mirror reported Odemwingie tweeting: "I can understand the reaction of a few Albion fans on my desire to leave the club. Real reason? Cos they once doubted my commitment."

As his legacy as a fans' favourite crumbled with every tap of his keyboard, the fiery affair looked to have cooled as the window approached its end, with Odemwingie still a West Brom player on deadline day.

However, West Brom's troublesome striker was far from finished in his escape plan.

An infamous image sparked fury and confusion as Odemwingie became a football folktale

Known for being the busiest and most hectic day of the footballing calendar, it is rare for the transfer process to be such a significant story in itself, but that was what would happen just hours before the window slammed shut.

Unbeknownst to everyone, including West Bromwich Albion, Odemwingie took the 125-mile drive from The Hawthorns training complex to Loftus Road in an attempt to personally push the envelope through and then spoke to Sky Sports through the window of his Range Rover in a now infamous image about his excitement to be a new QPR player.

With Odemwingie talking as though he was already a Hoops player, the Albion fanbase erupted in a slew of anger and bewilderment as the club clarified that no deal was done, leading QPR to lock the striker out of Loftus Road with no deal permitting the R's to speak to the Nigerian.

The Albion chairman Jeremy Peace, told BBC Sport of the club's disappointment in Odemwingie and reiterated their expectations of the contracted striker: "This evening's developments have brought a conclusion to what has been an unsavoury affair. He must now accept the fact he remains under contract for a further 18 months and has to focus on his Albion commitments."

But the "unsavoury affair" would remain until Odemwingie eventually parted ways with West Brom, as the Nigerian was greeted with a chorus of boos on his return to The Hawthorns sideline.

That sideline was also where the Super Eagle would spend the majority of his final few months as a West Brom player after failing to convince Baggies' boss Clarke he would be willing to give his all again, so he was kept to purely a cameo capacity and never started for the club again.

Odemwingie finally got his move in the 2014 summer window to Premier League new-boys Cardiff City, who were quick to offer Odemwingie a lifeline and secure the striker's services.

As for Albion, full recoupment of the £2.5m the side invested in the Nigerian may have at one point seemed an underwhelming return considering the stats of the striker, but despite the record breaker he was, the mark and moments Odemwingie made in a blue and white shirt was overshadowed by what happened out of one, and what happened in his Range Rover on that strange deadline day in the most bizarre deal to never happen.