It is starting to feel more and more like Viktor Gyokeres was the one who got away for Albion.

The Swedish striker, who turned 26 in June, is being tipped for a Premier League move after his hat-trick, including two penalties, for Sporting against Manchester City in Lisbon.

Scoring goals for Coventry in the Championship is great.

So is following that up in the Portuguese league, even Europa ties against lesser sides from across the continent.

As that happens, it is easier to say it is not proof he could spearhead a club aiming for the top seven or eight in the Premier League, which is where Albion are.

A night causing problems to Manchester City, even a City not at their best, suddenly changes things a little.

It suggests the man who was let go to Coventry for £1 million CAN be a top striker in the upper reaches of the Prem.

In the zone to which Albion aspire to be significant competitors.

But is it all hindsight? Maybe Rio Ferdinand hit the nail on the head as he spoke on TNT Sports.

The former England centre-back said: “He has had a journey where he has had to build himself and create what he is now and you think to yourself, how has he been allowed to get out?

“Maybe he has grown into what he is – the confidence, the stature he has. He might have had to wait for that to come.

“But now, a few times on the halfway line and running on goal, blowing players away, holding people off. It is going to be interesting.”

There is a theory in the Midlands that Gyokeres became what he is because of his £1 million move.

He will be seen as an Albion miss alongside their many recruitment hits.

Those hits include players who have done well but also those they have let go who have NOT gone on to prove them wrong.

And there are plenty of names on FotMob who fit the latter category.

So how much of what we hear now is benefit of hindsight?

When Gyokeres had opportunities in the League Cup four years ago, it is hard to remember there being a clamour to get him into the Prem starting line-up.

He scored at home to Portsmouth, on the night Alexis Mac Allister opened his account for the club.

Head coach Graham Potter said of Gyokeres then: “I think he has got attributes that are different. It’s not the easiest to play up front on his own, which was the role he was asked to do.

“I thought he kept going, he got his rewards at the end.

“He is learning but he has still got qualities that I think we can use.

“He is one of those will keep assessing where he is at and make the right decision for him in terms of his development.

“But he has been good in the group and we are pleased with him.”

But there was not the same excitement as there had been over Aaron Connolly a year earlier.

Connolly had emerged from the under-23s as the central striker while Gyokeres often found himself playing out to the left as his wingman.

Maybe Gyokeres has always been, if not a late developer, then one who took just a bit more time.

As a teenager at Brommapojkarna in Sweden, he was not considered to be their prize asset.

That was Joseph Colley, who was sold to Chelsea but never played in their first team and is now at Wisla Krakow.

Brommapojkarna boss Dalibor Savic said Gyokeres had a great work ethic instilled in him by his dad Stefan, who was himself a football coach having played professionally at Ostersunds.

As was to happen in both England and Germany, a spell in the second tier worked well for young Gyokeres.

Relegation for Brommapojkarna pushed him into the first team and he scored seven goals to help them go straight back up and ignite his own senior career.

He joined Albion in January, 2018, and, in his first loan stint along with Leo Ostigard, helped St Pauli avoid relegation – again, playing second-tier football.

St Pauli also used him wide on the left and that helped his all-round game.

But he has come to the fore as a No.9 as his time at Sporting has surpassed all expectations.

Coventry fans were somewhat non-plussed initially when he transferred his loan allegiance from Swansea, where Steve Cooper had not got much of a tune out of him.

Andy Turner, of the Coventry Telegraph, told The Argus at the time of his departure to Sporting: “He grew into the season and got better and better and more confident.

“By the end of the season, people were thinking he had really good potential.

“Adi Viveash had ten years working with Chelsea’s under-18s and development squad and won just about everything going.

“He has this reputation of being a top class development coach.

“Vik is probably one of his biggest successes. They got the best out of him.”

Viveash says he saw a massive change in Gyokeres because of the seven-figure move from the Seagulls.

That he became the player he is because of the move.

Viveash said: “He came in with the confidence of being bought by a team, and suddenly he’d been told that he was going to be the main man. And he looked like the main man.

“He built himself up, he’d obviously worked hard in the off-season in the gym, and the contacts with his back to goal? He started smashing centre-backs around in training! And it was a real eye-opener for all of us to go: ‘OK, this lad means business now’.”

The rest is becoming history – and it is history of which Albion, rightly or not, will be reminded every time Gyokeres has a night like he did against City.