So around August last year I had a debate with a gooner friend about the relative hit/miss ratio of transfers for our respective clubs. Obviously classing a transfer as either hit or miss isn't very scientific. Some are obvious but people like Bent I put as a minor hit (M HIT) as he was a first-teamer, did a job(ish), kept his value etc. Bit of a dodgy conclusion maybe. As is claiming Keane on his second stint was a hit (but we needed a striker desperately at the time and he got a few goals that helped us out). Point is that after doing this and comparing our appraisals of Arsenal and Spurs' transfers over the last five years or so the percentage of hits for Spurs and Arsenal were not all that different: He'd come to the conclusion that about 75% of Arsenal's signings were hits of some sort, I'd reckoned on about 55% for Spurs. The main thing was that in the same time period Spurs had made 40 signings and Arsenal only 24. Thank you Comolli! Now the actual point of this post is that under Harry I'd say our percentage is now about 82% (14/17 are hits of some sort in my book - although I did my appraising a year ago before Keane had reached his new lows of 10/11 season). So - er, the point is that Harry's done excellently, as any good wheeler-dealer would. And not having a DOF is good. And other obvious conclusions that didn't need this much typing. See below, in the spirit of sharing, my embarrassing attempt of brutalising facts in the name of footy-debate: (Notice some are question marks for players we/I just didn't see or we are yet to really be able to come to a conclusion about) --------------------------------------------------------------- HARRY ERA Brad Friedel Aston Villa Free 01 Jul, 2011 HIT Cristian Ceballos Barcelona Free 11 Jul, 2011 ? Souleymane Coulibaly Siena Signed 18 Jul, 2011 ? Scott Parker West Ham £5,000,000 31 Aug, 2011 HIT Bongani Khumalo Supersport U £1,700,000 07 Jan, 2011 MISS Steven Pienaar Everton £3,000,000 18 Jan, 2011 MISS William Gallas Arsenal Free 20 Aug, 2010 HIT Rafael van der Vaart Real Madrid £8,000,000 31 Aug, 2010 HIT Sandro Internacional £8,000,000 26 Mar, 2010 HIT Younes Kaboul Portsmouth £ 5000000 31-01-2010 HIT (this time round) Kyle Naughton Sheff Utd Signed 22-07-2009 ? Kyle Walker Sheff Utd Signed 22-07-2009 HIT Peter Crouch Portsmouth £ 9,000,000 27-07-2009 HIT Sebastien Bassong Newcastle £ 8,000,000 06-08-2009 HIT Niko Kranjcar Portsmouth Signed 01-09-2009 HIT Jimmy Walker West Ham Free 01-09-2009 ? Jermain Defoe Portsmouth £ 15,000,000 06-01-2009 HIT Wilson Palacios Wigan £ 12,000,000 21-01-2009 M HIT Carlo Cudicini Chelsea Free 26-01-2009 HIT Pascal Chimbonda Sunderland Signed 26-01-2009 M MISS Robbie Keane Liverpool £ 12,000,000 02-02-2009 M HIT PRE-HARRY ERA Luka Modric Dyn. Zagreb £ 16,600,000 26-04-2008 HIT Giovani Barcelona £ 4,700,000 11-06-2008 M MISS (?) Heurelho Gomes PSV Eindhoven £ 7,800,000 26-06-2008 M HIT John Bostock C Palace £ 700,000 09-07-2008 ? David Bentley Blackburn £ 15,000,000 30-07-2008 MISS Sanchez Cesar Zaragoza Signed 12-08-2008 ? Roman Pavlyuchenko Spartak M. £ 13,800,000 30-08-2008 M MISS Vedran Corluka Man City £ 8,500,000 01-09-2008 HIT Chris Gunter Cardiff £ 2,000,000 01-01-2008 MISS Jonathan Woodgate Middlesbro £ 8,000,000 28-01-2008 M HIT Alan Hutton Rangers £ 9,000,000 30-01-2008 MISS Gilberto Hertha Berlin £ 2,000,000 31-01-2008 MISS Danny Rose Leeds Signed 26-07-2007 ? Kevin Boateng Hertha Berlin Signed 31-07-2007 MISS Gareth Bale Southampton £ 5,000,000 25-05-2007 HIT Adel Taarabt Lens Signed 08-06-2007 MISS Darren Bent Charlton £ 16,500,000 29-06-2007 M HIT Younes Kaboul Auxerre £ 8,000,000 05-07-2007 MISS Ben Alnwick Sunderland £ 900,000 02-01-2007 MISS Ricardo Rocha Benfica £ 3,300,000 23-01-2007 MISS Didier Zokora St Etienne £ 8,200,000 15-07-2006 MISS Ahmed Mido Roma £ 4,500,000 29-08-2006 HIT Pascal Chimbonda Wigan £ 4,500,000 31-08-2006 HIT Benoit Assou-Ekotto Lens £ 3,500,000 09-06-2006 HIT (eventually) Dimitar Berbatov B Leverkusen £ 10,900,000 01-07-2006 HIT Dorian Dervite Lille Signed 01-07-2006 ? Tomas Pekhart Slavia Prague Signed 01-07-2006 ? Hossam Ghaly Feyenoord Signed 31-01-2006 MISS Danny Murphy Charlton £ 2,000,000 31-01-2006 M MISS Wayne Routledge C Palace Signed 01-07-2005 MISS Tom Huddlestone Derby £ 2,500,000 01-07-2005 HIT Aaron Lennon Leeds £ 1,000,000 01-07-2005 HIT Teemu Tainio Auxerre Free 01-07-2005 M MISS Mounir El Hamdaoui Excelsior Free 01-07-2005 ? Radek Cerny Slavia Prague Signed 01-07-2005 ? Edgar Davids Inter Free 03-08-2005 HIT Jermaine Jenas Newcastle £ 7,000,000 31-08-2005 M MISS Grzegorz Rasiak Derby Signed 31-08-2005 MISS Young-Pyo Lee PSV Eindhoven Signed 31-08-2005 M HIT
I'd honestly call Bostock a miss these days - on the other hand, I wouldn;t call Kaboul's first stint a miss, because he was playing well until Ramos froze him out.
Hard to gauge a lot of them yet, but I just noticed that you have Tainio down as a miss. Huh? Very useful squad player signed for nothing, played various roles for us pretty well and then sold on to Sunderland for about £3m, if I remember right. Not sure about Palacios being a hit and Zokora being a miss, either.
Yeah - there's a few questionable conclusions up there but I guess they cancel each other out. I too would call Bostock a miss now. Kaboul looked like a good prospect but his defending was a bit dodgy first time round.
considering how many games he actually played i'm not sure jenas was a miss. I think if bent was a M HIT then jenas should be too.
Bent a hit and Pav a miss... really? I can't see how anyone could class Darren Bent as a hit. Also Gomes a hit? Jenas and Tainio misses?
Tainio is a legend. The YouTube clip of him at Wembley pointing to the scoreboard against Chelsea in the league cup final in 08 made him a hero in my eyes.
[video=youtube;-wf5yuE7G38]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wf5yuE7G38[/video] He took longer than Rory Delap does to take that throw!
Everyone's defending was dodgy at the time because the midfield was about as solid as blancmange at the time. Daws was getting a ton of stick at the time as well, for the exact same reason. Palacios was a hit in as much as his signing gave our midfield the bite to finish fourth, which can't be said of Zokora's time at the club. And, yes, Bent was a miss - not least because his signing led to Defoe's departure, and we could've done with him as Ramos' tenure petered out into awfulness. Jenas I'm oin the fence - he did contribute goals from midfield, which not many others did for several seasons, but he's had four seasons of contributing nothing before being loaned to Villa.
Please note that Darren Bent was a M HIT (minor hit). Cos he did score a few and he held his value. Actually - I won't defend it - I'm wrong. Obviously he was a miss. I did this list in the heat of a debate with a gooner when I was actually on holiday summer before last. Pav's a miss in my eyes all day long. Tainio: Bit harsh maybe. But he never really made a difference to the team. For a free I guess that's OK - and getting £3m for him at the end's OK too. Jenas is a tricky one. He WAS a first choice starter for so long but then again he was also a bit useless. Was it £8m well spent? Arsenal got Van Persie for £2m Gomes looked to finally be a hit the year we finished 4th (I did these summer before last then added the new buys just now). Nowadays Gomes is definitely a miss, I'd say.
My good lord Kab's a frikkin BEAST! He towers over Drogba in that clip, who's a rather like an ox himself. Never realised how massive he is! Anyways, we all know that our best EVER signing was the mighty Helder Postiga. Oozed quality he did.
[video=youtube;WkIjic265ts]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkIjic265ts[/video] He did. This peach of a miss is SO bad it had to have required a huge amount of quality and talent to pull off. Postiga wasn't really that bad, he was just a brilliant actor.
Tainio...first time I've seen that!...here's another legend, the lad who twatted Fat Frank after a game! I'm not condoning it at all but... Don't remember it either, just spotted it when the Teemu vid finished. I love the first one, just comes running in from the right, with a left hook. The 2nd is stills...the sheer hate in his face! [video=youtube;0cHXHWf0qEQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cHXHWf0qEQ[/video] [video=youtube;aTvs1hIxk0o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTvs1hIxk0o[/video] ...oh btw, Cesar??? what was that about, just came here and picked up wages for....nope, I just don't know. Miss doesn't do it justice.
Ha what a legend! Every time I see that clip I get this strange feeling that Im looking at Russianhotspurs, you know- the hilarious geezer from 606 who used to put his cat in the washing machine? Oh Lampard Lamper, whoever and wherever you are....our thoughts are with you.
Now come on - my judgements above might be up for some questioning but I'd never have said that Bent was a massive hit. Unless you're talking some sort of rhyming slang. I also want to thank everyone for not pointing out the questionable decision to call Keane's second coming for £12m as a minor hit. Your collective kindness and understanding is duly noted. I should have pointed out the M MISS and M HIT meaning "minor miss" and "minor hit" thing a bit more clearly. I was in a rush and had to sort of do some work. That Postiga miss is a bit special! Anyone else remember someone on the old 606 saying, when we signed him, that we'd got the better player that summer when we signed him and Man Utd signed Ronaldo? They were ITK with the Portuguese League, see? I vividly remember it. Vividly.
Bale was a success under Jol - except for the habit of breaking his leg every three months. As for Modric played the grand total of ten games under Ramos, it's hard to say he was a failure under him - he got an assist against Chelsea in one of the few games the players turned up for.
