Comment - What West Brom's release clauses mean for the summer

Salomon Rondon can leave for £16.5million this summer, Nacer Chadli can go for a cool £17m, and Jonny Evans’s long-mooted exit is set to be confirmed for a more modest £3m.

The disparities between the figures appear odd, but Evans’s low figure is down to the contract negotiations that took place three years ago when Albion did everything they could to get the Manchester United defender to The Hawthorns.

There is no doubt that losing the Northern Irishman for so little will represent a failure, especially after Albion rejected bids of £18m and £23m from Manchester City and Leicester respectively last year.

That backfired on the club, who were then desperate to sell him in January to raise funds but only received a ‘derisory’ deadline day offer of £12m from Arsenal that, on balance, wasn’t worth taking.

Record signing Chadli may have cost the club a total of £18m, but recuperating almost all of that will represent a success.

Albion wanted £25m last year but Swansea weren’t willing to pay it, but if anybody meets his release clause this window the club will take the cash and wave goodbye.

The Belgian’s Baggies career has been a long drawn-out case of ‘what if?’

After a stunning start produced four goals in five games, he’s failed to impress.

A series of missed chances towards the end of last season played it’s part in a nine-game winless streak that meant a strong campaign ended on a sour note.

Last summer he refused to go on Tony Pulis’s pre-season bootcamp in Austria, alienating himself from both the head coach and the squad in one fell swoop.

He’s only featured in three league games since thanks to a series of injuries, but he’s a talent with plenty of potential, so there is likely to be at least one club willing to take a punt.

The most intriguing of the three is Rondon. One of the few positives to come out of Alan Pardew’s reign was the Venezuelan’s improved form.

Under Tony Pulis, Albion’s No.9 was often left far too isolated up front, and by the end of the Welshman’s tenure, the striker’s shoulders had started to slump, his infectious grin had faded.

But Pardew rejuvenated Rondon with a mixture of effusive public praise and stubborn faith in his abilities.

He described the striker as the best targetman he’d ever worked with and kept him in the line-up ahead of Jay Rodriguez, even when the former Southampton man was on a run of red-hot scoring form.

Rondon repaid Pardew with some battling performances, and he even started to find the net with more regularity.

Without Pardew, Rondon has scored 21 goals in 99 appearances for Albion, roughly one every five games.

Under the now departed head coach, he scored six goals in 19 appearances, improving his ratio to almost one in three.

He may not have been setting the world alight, but this improvement is noteworthy, especially considering how dreadful Albion were towards the end of Pardew’s reign.

Rondon was one of the few players who kept battling towards that grim end, one of the few who kept his tail up during the nine-game losing streak.

This should all be taken into consideration this summer, when other clubs come sniffing.

Rodriguez has, quite rightly, been the focal point of praise in recent weeks thanks to another run of form, but Rondon has been the focal point of the team that has allowed Rodriguez to flourish.

It’s also worth noting that Rondon only has two fewer goals than his strike partner this season and just one fewer in the league.

His release clause means the decision could be taken out of the club’s hands, but now that’s been made public, interested parties are bound to offer less than £16.5m to start with.

Albion won’t let him go for anything less than his release clause, which means he could stay on for a season in the Championship.

Rondon has never played in the second tier, so it’s difficult to predict how he would fare in that league. But he does appear to have an affinity to the Baggies.

Even if his finishing sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, he’s earned the right this season to be given a chance in an attack-minded team that isn’t plastered to the bottom of the table.

Much will depend on the manager that comes in, but his performance under Pardew suggests that when he’s not left so isolated, there is a useful striker beneath the surface.

Out of all three of the players with known release clauses, he is the one who is most likely to stay, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.