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Selling Kamil Grosicki was never part of the January plan for Hull City. Or so Grant McCann had always said.

With just two days of the transfer window left, Grosicki has been cleared to discuss a permanent move to Championship rivals West Bromwich Albion.

The fee has been agreed and if personal terms are not an obstacle the 31-year-old will be gone before Friday night’s deadline.

On the back of three straight defeats in the Championship it was not the news City fans wanted to hear.

For all Grosicki was the perennial enigma, his pedigree was as clear as his pace. Two and a half years in the Championship have seen the winger score 24 goals and create 22 more. The number of full-backs left in his wake would be higher still.

But Grosicki has always been an expensive luxury and it has now be decided that this is the time to cash in before it is too late.

These are the final days where City could hope to make anything back on the Poland international.

Extending the winger’s contract for another 12 months was never a palatable prospect for City given his wages of £27,000-a-week and nor was agreeing an extension on reduced wages ever going to be a palatable prospect for Grosicki.

One source suggested it was “99 per cent certain” that Grosicki would leave as a free agent this summer and accepting something, anything from West Brom was better than nothing.

City have seen an uncomfortably long line of high-profile names depart on free transfers in recent summers.

Abel Hernandez, Michael Dawson, Allan McGregor, David Meyler, David Marshall and Evandro all left as free agents, with City effectively writing off over £20m in transfer fees.

Markus Henriksen will be the latest to join that roll call if he cannot find the right move before Friday night and he would not be alone. The expectation is that Stephen Kingsley and Nouha Dicko will leave as free agents, while Jon Toral and Kevin Stewart might also end up with the same fate at the end of this season.

That, in theory, could account for £40m of signings all moving on as free agents.

City have been braced to take a heavy hit on Kamil Grosicki as soon as they were relegated from the Premier League in 2017 and it is worth recalling that a two-year loan was sanctioned for him to join Bursaspor at the start of last season. City, at that time, were only too happy to shed his wages.

The year and a half that has followed have transformed how Grosicki will be remembered in these parts but on the club’s books he has always remained a financial millstone.

In this post-parachute payment era, City cannot to commit £1.5m for the annual wages of any one player. Triggering another 12 months on his current salary was somewhere in between improbable and impossible.

The numbers behind this West Brom deal are currently sketchy but there is a clear financial benefit for City. Their highest earner will depart five months before the end of his contact and with that will come a small windfall. It is understood promotion for the Baggies would also bring a further payment.

Nothing like the £7m City paid to sign Grosicki from Rennes, of course, but money they could not turn down.

Perhaps the bigger issue is what this says about City’s ambitions for this season.

McCann remains adamant that this season can end with a top-six finish but allowing one of the division’s most creative players to leave has weakened a squad short on x-factor players.

Grosicki was certainly that. Those lightening bursts and spectacular free-kicks were what turned him from villain to hero at the KCOM Stadium, even if he did have the tendency to frustrate. There is no ‘I’ in team but there was two in Grosicki.

That wildly inconsistent streak has ensured reaction to his exit has been mixed but the only place City will be stronger without him is on the balance sheets.