West Brom must ditch injury-prone figure who earns more than Fellows

West Bromwich Albion will hope Carlos Corberan’s expertise in the Championship playoffs stands them in good stead to reach the final at Wembley, with the Spanish Baggies boss getting Huddersfield Town there back in 2022.

They will have to overcome a very tricky Southampton side in order to get there, however, with Corberan hoping that key individuals such as Darnell Furlong and Grady Diangana don’t fall victim to the pressures the playoffs can bring up.

As much as the focus now will be on the troops that have played week in week out for the Baggies in order to get over the line in the playoffs, the summer will be an intriguing one to see who the West Midlands outfit sell.

If they are to return to the Premier League, or just stay put in the second tier, there’s no doubting that one West Brom flop will be let go of after barely leaving an impression on the Hawthorns masses over two unmemorable seasons.

Martin Kelly’s time at West Brom

Joining in the summer of 2022 on a free transfer after leaving long-term employers Crystal Palace behind, where he picked up 148 appearances over eight years, West Brom must have thought Martin Kelly would prove to be a shrewd acquisition.

However, the warning signs were there for the Championship promotion-chasers when glancing an eye over Kelly’s lack of football at the Eagles during his final seasons at Selhurst Park.

The former Liverpool man only managed to play 20 times over his final three campaigns in South London, with West Brom gambling anyway that the experienced right-back could shake off these issues and become a regular first-team face dropping down a division.

It hasn’t worked out like that whatsoever, with Kelly not appearing in a single minute of action in the regular season with serious injury setback after serious injury setback.

Missing a ridiculous 589 days of action when on the books at Palace and the Reds owing to being in the treatment room, the Baggies will know it’s the correct time to cut ties when his contract expires next month.

It will sting knowing that they never got the best out of a man who did star at Palace, but a smart call to make when considering his wage costs are also higher than that of Tom Fellows who represents the next generation at the Hawthorns away from the 34-year-old.

Kelly’s wage at West Brom

Kelly’s wage, in the grand scheme of things in the West Midlands, isn’t burning a major hole in the Baggies’ back pocket but will be a situation they would like to fix considering his complete lack of game-time.

The one-time England international earns £7.5k-per-week currently, which sees him pocket £1.5k-per-week more than Tom Fellows’ £6k-per-week despite the homegrown product’s ascent into the men’s team this campaign.

Bagging a healthy goals and assists return of nine from 37 outings this term, Fellows will be wanting a significant wage boost very soon especially if Premier League football is clinched.

Only around £3k-per-week off Alex Palmer’s salary too at £10.9k – who is West Brom’s concrete first-choice goalkeeper without doubt – starting every minute of Championship football possible to him – Kelly will need to be let go of in the summer to fairly redistribute the wage bill out again.

His salary, over two seasons, has seen the club throw away £780k in the process which could have been used to put towards transfer funds also.

Corberan will want to get rid of a number of ageing players in the summer away from just Kelly looking at the table above, with the former Liverpool player staring retirement in the face even more when his Baggies contract is up.