West Bromwich Albion: Why Baggies want to keep Josh Maja and Karlan Grant – fan’s voice

From a fitness perspective, I get some of the concerns.

Grant started just 17 games last season – fewer than the released Wallace (although he is also four years younger than the skipper).

The 14 games for which Grant was unavailable due to injury this season is more than he’s missed through injury in the previous five years of his Albion career.

At just 28, it’s easy to believe this level of absence won’t be repeated.

Maja, too, lacked starts (just 15 to be precise), but this wasn’t due to injury.

Instead, it was down to the then manager Ryan Mason who seemed to believe the forward didn’t warrant a place in his starting XI.

That decision was exposed somewhat when James Morrison gave Maja six starts at the back end of the season and was duly rewarded with three goals.

It’s hardly surprising when you look at the stats.

In the past two seasons, Maja has not scored once in the league when coming off the bench.

Yet in 41 league starts, in the same period, he has returned an impressive 16 goals.

That record probably goes some way to explain James Morrison’s desire to keep the Nigerian striker.

For the reasons behind the efforts to retain Grant, you must dig a little deeper. However, a dip into the data justifies that call too.

Grant is one of the best forwards in the league for ball recoveries in the final third, successful dribbles per 90 and touches in the opposition box. He is also very rarely dribbled past.

In short, Grant is a wide man who works very hard, advances his team up the pitch, presses opposition defenders and looks after his full-back.

While these are not the things that will always catch the eye of spectators, trust me when I tell you that coaches and managers notice and value them.

Add to that the fact that Albion are already light in attacking areas, and retaining players is almost always cheaper than recruiting them, suddenly our retained list starts to make a lot of sense.

However, at the time of writing, none of Grant, O’Leary, nor Maja has signed on the dotted line.

Wanting to keep them is one thing – doing so is something else entirely.