West Brom monitoring Premier League midfield star
Albion are among several Championship clubs keeping tabs on Bournemouth midfielder David Brooks.
The Cherries are considering whether to make the Wales international available for loan this summer, in order to allow him more game time.
Brooks made 29 Premier League appearances last season but only nine of those were starts and a departure from the Vitality Stadium, if only on a short-term basis, is considered a possibility this summer.
The former Sheffield United star, who spent more than a year out of the game after being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2021, helped Southampton win promotion through the play-offs during his most recent Championship loan spell in 2023-24.
Albion are keen to boost their midfield options after letting John Swift depart on a free transfer at the end of the season.
Brooks began his career with Halifax before joining the Blades and then moved to Bournemouth in an £11.5million deal seven years ago.
The Baggies are still to make their first signing following the appointment of Ryan Mason as their new head coach earlier this month.
Tottenham youngster Mikey Moore, who Mason knows well from his time coaching at the north London club, has been touted as a potential attacking target, while the Baggies have also been heavily linked with Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland.
The latter is out of contract at Tynecastle but also reportedly has interest from clubs in Saudi Arabia.
West Brom could soon seal their best £0 signing since Maja
Ryan Mason will be hopeful that his new West Bromwich Albion troops can start the Championship season off on the best possible footing when August comes around.
The Baggies will just have to put the horrible decline in form they suffered at the close of the 2024/25 season to the back of their heads now as a fresh era begins, with Tony Mowbray an unfortunate casualty off the back of West Brom falling out of the playoff spots.
It will also be a clean, injury-free slate for Josh Maja you hope, with the ex-Sunderland marksman missing for all of 2025 to date for the West Midlands side, after a blistering first half of the second-tier campaign.
Maja’s rising importance at West Brom
Maja’s name will have rung a few bells for West Brom supporters when he joined the building in the summer of 2023, having been in the EFL limelight once upon a time when rising the ranks at Sunderland.
Whilst he did endure a shaky start at the Hawthorns – as seen in Maja only powering home one meagre Championship goal during his debut season – the free agent capture has since gone on to be a firm fan favourite for supporters of Mason’s men, with the potency he showed at the Stadium of Light coming to the forefront once more.
Now a far more seasoned attacker than his early Black Cats education, with 17 goals fired home for the Wearside outfit before Bordeaux came calling, Maja managed to tally up a lethal 12 strikes for West Brom last season, even as his game-time dried up to only 26 league clashes owing to injury.
West Brom unearthing a lethal finisher for nothing came at the perfect possible time too, considering former main marksman Brandon Thomas-Asante had moved on the summer before the 26-year-old burst into life.
Now, the Baggies’ success in the free agent market could continue with another shrewd move, with the Baggies improving their numbers significantly in one position of the pitch if a Premier League-experienced star were to join Mason’s camp.
West Brom looking at another amazing free signing
West Brom’s golden pick-up of Maja isn’t their only brilliant free signing in recent years, with Jed Wallace also entering the building back in 2022 for zilch. Now, he has 27 goal contributions and counting for the Championship side.
Therefore, West Brom will be confident that their new target will instantly fit in as well, with journalist Graeme Bailey revealing earlier this month that Mason and Co. have Harry Toffolo on their radar after his sad Nottingham Forest exit was confirmed.
Toffolo was a much-loved presence at the City Ground, with this acrobatic clearance off the line last season a standout memory from his Premier League playing days at the club.
But, it’s the 6-foot full-back’s previous exploits in the Championship that will catch West Brom’s eye even more, with Carlos Corberan a big advocate for the former England U20 international when the pair were together at Huddersfield Town, before the Spaniard took on the Hawthorns reins.
Corberan would call upon Toffolo to be both expansive and dangerous in attack – as seen in his nine goals and 14 assists – but also gritty and nasty in defence when needed, with a bumper 30 clean sheets also coming his way across 92 Championship appearances in West Yorkshire.
Labelled as “excellent” by ex-Forest boss Steve Cooper when signing on the dotted line in Nottingham, landing the impressive defender would definitely be seen as another gleaming free transfer akin to Maja’s arrival on the scene, with Mason only having Callum Styles and Gianluca Frabotta at his disposal currently on the left flank of his back-line.
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