West Coast great Peter Sumich isn’t buying the hype around million-dollar man Tim Kelly, saying the former Geelong midfielder was “no champion”.

Having arrived last October as the biggest inbound player trade in the club’s history, Kelly will play his first game for the Eagles in Thursday’s Marsh Community Series fixture against Essendon.

Sumich, who was part of West Coast’s 2006 flag as an assistant coach and guided the decorated midfield that included Chris Judd, Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr, said the sample size of Kelly’s 48-game AFL career was still small.

“He’s not a champion. People have thrown that word around too easy at times,” Sumich said.

“He’s not a champion player. You’ve got to put the runs on the board over a number of years.”

Kelly, 25, finished fifth in last year’s Brownlow Medal with 24 votes and finished second to Patrick Dangerfield in the Cats’ best-and-fairest award.

Sumich believed existing midfield trio Luke Shuey, Elliot Yeo and Andrew Gaff would remain critical to West Coast’s hopes in 2020.

“At the end of the day, we’ll see if he can rack them up and play better than the Shueys, Yeos and Gaffs and I don’t think so,” he told 6PR on Saturday.

“Because I rate those three very highly and I’m still waiting to see Kelly over a period of time to make sure that he gets to the heights of those three.

“I think Kelly might, first up, just find it a bit difficult.

“Look he’s going to be a very good player for them, don’t get me wrong. I think he’s going to find it hard initially and then he’ll work through it, probably in 12 months or so.”

Former Fremantle defender Lee Spurr agreed.

“I think Tim Kelly is going to struggle early in the gold and blue. I don’t think he’s going to have the year that he had last year,” Spurr said.

“I think (there’s) over-expectation and I think he’ll get targeted and tagged heavily in the West Coast midfield. Whereas at Geelong he got a bit of a free rein.”

West Coast gave up their first three picks in November’s draft, as well as this year’s first-round pick, for Kelly as part of the complex mega deal that included pick swaps with the Bombers.

They got back pick 52 and a future third-rounder.

The Eagles have little doubt he is worth the huge outlay, with football operations manager Craig Vozzo saying at the time the club rated Kelly “at that very high end of elite”.

Having been paid $257,000 last season at Geelong, Kelly has immediately become one of the highest-paid players at West Coast after signing a six-year deal worth about $5 million.