Darren Bent, Djibril Cisse and the O'Shea-Wes Brown double deal all felt big at the time. As a bairn, signing Lee Clark for £2.5m after relegation felt big, before that the biggest fees I think were Quinny, David Kelly etc
9 single PL games as a lone striker. He was mostly in the 10 just off a centre forward. Linked up very well with Bendtner in 11/12, they were a joy to watch at times. please log in to view this image
It's Sess baby... I was watching everything I could find for hours - and I loved every time he touched the ball for us - drawing foul after foul - tricks and skills win the day as a fan - getting us off of our seats. I knew he would be an X factor - I was delighted and fascinated. Diarra and Sadiki are quality and I can feel they will be really good and profitable for us, and a big start of staying up (I believe we can and will) - but no, they won't rizzle the tizzle like Sess did. Mikataudze would get me more excited if it happens, but still no. Having the single most skillful player in the Premier league - that was what Sess was - and I knew it from the moment we were linked.
I posted it a few days ago but according to Billy Jones, JW got a raw deal with us and was always available to play. He was just never picked.
Gordon Steed Cisse Bent Sessegnon Gyan Johnson Defoe Rodwell (idiot) Relevant to the level Mcgeady Grigg (IDIOT) Jack Clarke Roberts Jobe all of the ones this summer too
I tried to think of a starting line up of the players I was most excited about, here we go: Gordon Hume (watched him quite a few times for Linfield and loved his tackling) Ballard Kone Van Aanholt Mvilla Cana Medina (believed we were about to sign an Argentinan superstar) Steed Sess Bent
I remember an interview with him as a kid where he said he wished he'd come to us a few years earlier when he left Bolton. He still had a lot of time for us in his later years.
I think he did for a good while when we Bent left and Gyan and Welbeck were injured, but not as a regular thing the season he signed. The next season we'd lost Welbeck back to Man U then Gyan right at the end of the window, leaving only Bentner. I honestly don't think it was a Bruce tactic, just dictated by circumstances (though Bruce was tactically incompetent, so who knows).
For me the signing that got me most excited were Gyan, Muntari and Defoe. Gyan has starred at the world cup and was a Ballon d'Or nominee (finished 3rd or 4th if I remember). And he was class that first season, even with a few injuries robbing us of him for a while. That felt like really shopping with the big boys. Sully Muntari might not have done much with Portsmouth, but was a regular international for Ghana, had a great rep in Italy and we'd signed him just after Inter won the Champions League. A key player for them under Mourinho when they won the Champions League but had fallen out with Benitez. Sadly he only played 9 games for us before going back to Inter and then left them to join AC Milan and had a successful 4 years with them! Defoe felt like a statement signing, that both us and him had a point to prove. Signing a player who'd had such a good career at Spurs who seemed to realise he'd made a mistake going to the MLS when he did who could still hold his own was huge. 34 goals in 87 games for us in a struggling team was a brilliant return and the fact he only left us because of the release clause and that he was at that time England's first choice striker still hurts but makes me proud. And to be honest, with Levy and Spurs, we'd never have gotten him if he'd not gone to the MLS. Spurs would have milked us for all they could.
Darren Bent I was happy with Flo, Gordon, Kilbane and Martin Oneill as manager too, but it didn't go as well for them.
