Collyer Bets on West Brom After Turning Down Hull

Manchester United have accepted a guaranteed £3 million fee from West Bromwich Albion for Toby Collyer, plus add-ons the club values at £7.6 million (about $4 million on the floor). The 22-year-old midfielder has agreed personal terms, Laurie Whitwell of The Athletic reported on 28 August, and United keep a 40 percent sell-on.

Hull City and Middlesbrough also bid. Collyer picked the Hawthorns, chasing regular games in a promotion push rather than a Premier League squad place at a club that had already spent the summer restocking midfield.

Collyer Chose the Hawthorns Over Premier League Hull

That choice is the deal. Hull came up through last season’s Championship play-offs, beat Middlesbrough in the final, and opened this Premier League campaign by beating United 2-0 at the MKM Stadium. Two days before Whitwell’s story, BBC reporter Simon Stone wrote that the lure of the top flight looked likely to settle it.

Collyer went the other way. The Athletic said he wanted minutes and a run at promotion under James Morrison, who has started this Championship season with two wins from two. West Brom sit second, level on six points with Millwall, after a 2-1 win at Norwich City and a 3-1 home win over relegated Burnley.

He already knows the building. He spent the first half of last season there on loan, then the second half at Hull, and both spells died on injuries. A permanent move to the club where he actually finished games, on a side that has started fast, was the wager he was willing to take.

The Premier League Door Hull Left Open

Hull’s interest was real, and late. Head coach Sergej Jakirovic told Hull Live on 28 August that he still wanted the midfielder back and that a signing would mean making room in a 25-man Premier League squad. Talks with United had run through the summer in the background, the paper said.

The Tigers had already shopped like a promoted club. Squawka’s window tracker listed 12 arrivals and about £76 million spent, with midfield still named as a gap even after those deals. Jakirovic had Collyer for five Championship games last spring before an ankle injury in April ended the loan. The only start, Hull Live said, came against Coventry City on Easter Monday.

A Premier League return on those terms was a seat on the bench and a fight for a squad slot, not a promise of starts. West Brom could sell him the other thing: a team that has begun the season in the top two, a coach who already used him, and a hole in midfield after club captain Alex Mowatt left for Derby County on the eve of the campaign. Express & Star reported that Morrison wanted a midfield recruit as cover for that sale, even while a winger stayed the first shopping item.

Nine Figures on Midfield, Then a £3m Exit

United’s end of the trade is simpler. Michael Carrick rebuilt the engine room after Casemiro left, and Collyer was never going to live in that group. Sky Sports costed Andrey Santos, signed from Chelsea, and Youri Tielemans, signed from Aston Villa on a release clause, at a combined £85 million. Carlos Baleba then followed from Brighton in a deal AS USA reported as worth more than $87 million. The National put the whole midfield rebuild, once Baleba landed, at around £150 million.

Kobbie Mainoo is in Carrick’s plans, which he was not under Ruben Amorim, and Mason Mount’s pre-season form had already muddied the picture before he was taken off against Paris Saint-Germain on 8 August. Collyer still played 45 minutes of the friendly against Leeds United in Dublin and filled in when Mount was out, but the club had told him before the window that he could leave.

The timing suits the accounts as well as the squad list. His contract expires on 30 June 2027, so 2026-27 is the last guaranteed year, and a sale now still produces a fee. Football 365, citing the Daily Mail, said the same INEOS push to turn academy players into cash had already sent goalkeeper Radek Vitek to Middlesbrough for around £14 million with a buy-back and a 35 percent sell-on. Collyer’s deal is the smaller cousin of that structure: take the money, keep a slice of the next jump.

United Keep 40 Percent of the Next Sale

The guaranteed £3 million is the number that will travel. It is also the wrong number to stop on. United believe the add-ons can more than double the fee to £7.6 million, Whitwell wrote, and they have kept 40 percent of any future sale. Ben Jacobs separately split the extras at £4.6 million on top of the £3 million floor.

Whitwell said most of those extras are thought to be within reach, while some only pay if West Brom reach the Premier League and Europe, and if Collyer plays for England. That last rung is how a Championship signing is still being treated as a development asset rather than a write-off.

THE ADD-ON LADDER

• The floor: A guaranteed £3 million, the cash United collect now.
• Promotion and Europe: Extra payments if West Brom go up and then qualify for UEFA competition.
• England: Further money if Collyer plays for the senior national team.
• The tail: A 40 percent cut of whatever fee West Brom later take if they sell him on.

Forty percent is a heavy clawback by the standards mapped in The Athletic’s summer guide to how sell-on clauses are written into deals. Agents in that piece described the device as the tool you use when the buying club will not meet the asking price in cash: take less now, keep a share of the next sale. United have done both. They banked £3 million this week and wrote themselves into whatever comes after a promotion, a European place, or a bigger club coming back in.

The ceiling is not a forecast. West Brom finished 21st in the Championship last season with 51 points, and Morrison only got the job full-time on 30 April. Europe is the longest of those rungs. The 40 percent is the part that still pays if the player simply has a good season and moves on, even if the Hawthorns never sees the Premier League again.

Second in the Championship, Minus a Captain

Morrison’s side have looked nothing like last year’s scrape. They opened the league with a 2-1 win at Norwich, Aune Heggebø scoring on 75 minutes and Jimmy-Jay Morgan on 87, then beat Burnley 3-1 at home with Harry Whitwell and a brace from Isaac Price, one of them a penalty. They also put four past Rotherham United in the Carabao Cup before going out 3-2 at Newcastle United on 26 August.

ALBION AFTER TWO LEAGUE GAMES

• Record: Two wins from two, six points, second in the Championship.
• Goals: Five scored, two conceded, plus five more in two cup ties.
• Next: Middlesbrough away on 29 August, then Charlton Athletic and Watford at home.
• The hole: Alex Mowatt, the prospective captain, left for Derby before a ball was kicked.

Morrison already had a look at Collyer during last season’s chaos, when Ryan Mason, Eric Ramsay and then Morrison himself all took the team. BBC Sport’s Simon Stone, confirming the permanent deal on 28 August, added the line United’s own announcement has not yet supplied.

Manager James Morrison rates Collyer highly from previous loan spell.

Simon Stone, BBC Sport, on X

That rating has to live with the minutes. Collyer played 12 Championship matches for Albion last season, only three of them starts according to BBC Sport, before a calf injury against Birmingham City in late November sent him back to Carrington. United recalled him on 1 January. The player Morrison is buying is the one he liked, not the one who finished a full season in his midfield.

The 251st Graduate Played 13 Times

Tobias Christopher Collyer was born in Worthing on 3 January 2004 and came through Brighton & Hove Albion from under-12 level. He turned down a new deal there after a trial at United and signed in March 2022, with former Brighton under-18 coach Mark Beard praising his running and discipline. He was the 251st academy graduate to play for the first team.

His senior bow came off the bench in the 2024 Community Shield against Manchester City on 10 August. Three weeks later he replaced Casemiro at half-time in a 3-0 home defeat to Liverpool, his Premier League debut. Bruno Fernandes praised a Europa League cameo against Rangers in January 2025. By the end of that season he had 13 senior appearances for United across league, cups, Europe and the Shield, with no goals.

England have used him at under-16, where he captained the side, and at under-20. He made his England under-20 debut against Italy in a 2-1 Elite League win in Frosinone on 10 October 2024. Transfermarkt lists three under-20 caps and a market value of €5 million, last updated in May, which sits above the guaranteed fee United are taking now and below the package they say the add-ons can reach.

THE PATH TO THE HAWTHORNS

1. March 2022: Joins Manchester United from Brighton after turning down a new contract on the south coast.
2. 10 August 2024: Comes on in the Community Shield against Manchester City at Wembley, his competitive debut.
3. 15 August 2025: Starts a season-long loan at West Brom and debuts the next day in a 3-2 win at Wrexham.
4. Late November 2025: Suffers a calf injury against Birmingham City and is later recalled, the loan closed on 1 January 2026.
5. 30 January 2026: Joins Hull City on loan, plays five games, then an ankle injury in April ends the campaign.
6. 28 August 2026: Agrees a permanent move back to West Brom for £3 million, with add-ons and a 40 percent sell-on.

On United’s own site he is still listed as a first-team midfielder, shirt 43, with a line from earlier in his career: “To say I’ve made my debut and played for this great club, it’s unbelievable.” The club that posted that line is now the seller.

What the £7.6m Package Needs to Fire

For the add-ons to land in full, West Brom have to go up, then reach Europe, and Collyer has to play for England. Albion have two league wins and a cup run that died at Newcastle. They have not looked like a European side in years, and last season’s 21st-place finish is the recent record, not a rounding error. The England clause sits on a player with youth caps and no senior one.

The part of the structure that does not need a miracle is the sell-on. If Morrison’s start holds, and if Collyer stays fit in a way he did not across 2025-26, a Championship midfielder with United and England youth on the résumé becomes a saleable asset again. United would take 40 percent of that fee. That is the second wager inside the first: Collyer is betting on games, Albion are betting on a promotion push, and United are betting they still own a slice of whatever those games are worth.

The window shuts on Tuesday, 1 September. West Brom have Saturday’s Championship trip to Middlesbrough first, the same club that lost last season’s play-off final to Hull, and no official statement on Collyer had landed by Friday afternoon.