West Bromwich Albion decided to take a risk by loaning Oliver Burke overseas to further bolster his footballing CV.  

The Scotsman is playing his football in the top division of Spanish football with Alaves, meaning the winger is being exposed to some of Europe’s elites in Barcelona and Real Madrid. Burke is yet to make an appearance against either of the two big boys but has managed to get on against the likes of Valencia and Sevilla.

Alaves, though, have struggled this season and Burke – in his first six appearances for the club – has only managed to win two games, losing the other four. His starts have been sporadic too, with the attacker yet to maintain a spot in the starting XI for two consecutive games.

In fact, Burke has only managed to play the full 90 minutes on two occasions and hasn’t been receiving the game time his permanent club or himself would like.

But how has he been performing in those limited minutes he’s managed to get for the club? Not great. Remembering he is with a small fish in a big pond, Burke has recorded just one assist all season for Alaves in La Liga which came in a 2-0 win over Mallorca - his first experience of a victory in the division. In this game, he recorded his only goal involvement of the season with an assist in only seven minutes of football.

His second taste of victory came against Celta Vigo in another 2-0 for the club. This time, he managed 11 minutes as a substitute.

This isn’t his first experience in foreign football either. Burke endured a spell with RB Leipzig where he also struggled to make an impact, scoring one goal in 26 appearances for the German outfit.

Whilst West Brom probably weren’t expecting their player to go on to score 15 goals for a lesser team in La Liga, they might have at least been expecting him to secure more regular playing time.