Odemwingie a happy Baggie

Striker admits he considered leaving over the summer

Peter Odemwingie admits he considered pushing for a summer move away from West Brom, but is delighted to have been talked around by Steve Clarke.

The 31-year-old striker claims he suffered doubts about his ability to continue playing at the highest level and pondered a switch away from the Premier League.

The Nigeria international was the subject of a failed bid from Qatari side Al-Gharafa and reports of training ground unrest began to surface soon after Clarke's arrival.

Odemwingie, though, claims he has rediscovered his appetite to be a success at the Hawthorns and hopes productive talks with Clarke will see him reproduce the kind of form which saw him net 15 times during an impressive debut campaign in England back in 2010/11.

"Summer was a time when, at my age, I had second thoughts about continuing to play at this level," he told the Express and Star.

"I thought there would be nothing new for me at West Brom and I gave it a try (asked about leaving) to see what would happen.

Hungry

"But the club said that it was too early for me to go and they thought I could play an important role for them and keep playing.

"Then pre-season started and I got hungry again for Premier League action and I forgot about it.

"I don't know where (talk of a bust-up) came from. People would have seen afterwards if there was a problem."

Odemwingie insists Clarke played a key role in his decision to stay on and honour the three-year contract he penned last summer.

He added: "We sat down and had a normal talk. He was the new coach and he said: 'Give me a few weeks and see how we work, because we're ambitious for this year'.

"I said I would give it a couple of weeks and after that I was enjoying training and it looked like it was going to be an interesting season, so I forgot about the offer."