West Bromwich Albion sporting and technical director Richard Garlick admits they've been following Morgan Amalfitano for five years.
Garlick has revealed that the club spent five years tracking Amalfitano before finally securing his services over the summer.
He told the Birmingham Mail: "I don't think, internally, we're that surprised at how well he's done.
"We've got 17 reports over the last five years and we followed him a lot over the last two years. Steve Clarke also knew him from games against Marseille in the Champions League.
"We had watched him for a while but he was someone we weren't really expecting to become available to us. He was clearly at the level we thought was right for us."
