Swansea City’s record signing Borja Baston has been loaned out to Spanish side Malaga.
The striker, who cost Swansea £15.5m last summer, has moved back to his homeland on a season-long loan after failing to impress in his debut Premier League season.
There was a lot of excitement when Baston was brought in, but he only managed to get on the pitch for 549 minutes in the Premier League.
The details
There have been conflicting reports as to whether the loan includes an option-to-buy for Malaga.
In the past couple of days, there was some speculation that there was an option-to-buy. Cope Malaga reporter Javier Bautista said that there was an option for £12m.
WalesOnline have said that they believe that the deal doesn’t include any sort of option though.
Baston himself posted on social media Wednesday morning, saying that he wishes Swansea success during the upcoming season, and “wherever I am I will continue to support and encourage this team.”
Why did it not work out for Baston?
Baston had a terrific goal record for Eibar, where he was on loan at from Atletico Madrid, but for some reason the goals did not translate to the British game.
After he signed at the club, he did miss some time in pre-season with an injury, that reportedly kept occurring throughout the season.
He started slowly, as did Fernando Llorente, but Llorente was given a longer run in the team which started to be built around crossing to their target man. Baston did not have this luxury.
Baston was relegated to getting minutes off the bench at the end of games, particularly when Swansea were already losing.
Moving away from your home country for the first time, getting injured and then being stuck behind Llorente in the pecking order is going to be tough for anyone.
Some fans were hoping that Baston would stay and fight for his place and prove doubters wrong, in a fresh season in South Wales, but this won’t be the case.
For Swansea, the hope is that Baston returns to fitness and scores a hatful of goals in Spain once again, and he can return to the club for the 2018/19 season.