http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-worst-transfer-signings-of-the-past-15-years A nice little list this and unusually I don't disagree with any of the selections for worst, they all have some merit. You could argue that Delgado or Delap might fit in there (I'd argue Delap as a bigger waste of money than Thomas personally) but generally sound choices. What about you lot? Top 5 and 5 Mistakes.
Yeah, he states in the comments that he wanted to show the players' value, so took into account appearances and the time they were at the club versus the fee we paid and sale value.
it appears mostly about value for money, that being the case Forecast has to be the worst seeing as Bale's worth is being suggested £50mill +... a hideous decision to swap our sell on clause for him!
Tommy Forecast has to be up there with the worst, especially bearing in mind he was part of the Gareth Bale deal! I generally agree with those players though. However a case could probably be made for Chaplow. He only cost £50,000; you could buy 20 Chaplow's for the price of 1 Rickie Lambert. Or you could buy 700 Chaplows for the price of 1 Andy Carroll. The mind boggles.
Forecast is an interesting shout, but he's kind of a special case being a makeweight in a complex part ex. Not strictly speaking a signing we pursued but also nowhere near good value! Delap is another, large fee for nothing really that special. However he played a lot of games and was a decent utility man, I think he played in every outfield position for us.
Forecast undoubtedly because we never played him...that makes him expensive at any price. Of the ones suggested, I voted for Iments Bleidelis. Went for Lambert for best buy...the return on the money we paid is immense, but was also torn with Schneiderlin and Marion.
5 best in order of importance: 1. Ron Davies. 2. Jimmy Case. 3. Marion Pahars. 4. Frank Worthington. 5. Killer.
Thought this would be interesting with a bit more information so I did me some numbers. Okay so first of all this post isn't really about opinion because value is something that should be numerically viable and something that can be calculated. Technically Claus would be our greatest value signing ever. He started 83% of games while with us in the Premier league (using just Premiership data for this). He was signed for 400k which adjusts to 1.1m or so in the current market. I think if we signed a CB this summer for 1.1m and he started 283 games we'd be over THE GODDAMN MOON. Interestingly enough our most expensive signing during the Premiership years (adjusted to current market) was DAVID HIRST. His 2m fee adjusts up to nearly 7m now. Doesn't seem great value. One outstanding player of value from that time was Dean Richards, signed for nothing then sold for 8.1m, adjusted to 10.7m. Kevin Davies is arguably the most valuable signing we ever made looking at the math. Davies was signed for 750k (2.5m) and then sold for 7.25m (adjusted this is a whopping 17.8m, because of changes in the market that year and since). It seems to me that the best manager we had regarding transfers in that period was Dave Jones, with neither Strachen nor Hoddle coming anywhere near as effective in spending.
Dave Jones' cost per point average was just 390k just in case you were all wondering (I'm sure you weren't).
Amazing that James Beattie scored 68 goals for us. He was quite limited as a striker imo (poor first touch, imobile, slow) but he hit a golden streak for us that he was never able to replicate anywhere else. WGS knew how to get the best out of him. Anyway, he wouldn't be on my list.
Jelle van Damme I remember being really excited when we signed him, and the only possible reason for that could have been his name! What a flop. Forecast has to be in the list for me, not just because he turned out so rubbish, but because he was a make-weight in the transfer for one of the most talented footballers in the world! The only reason he didn't make the list has to be because he is so crap he hasn't registered on the authors radar.
Oh Neil McCann! Flash from the past. Or Neil McCunt as they used to cry. I've actually never heard of 2 and 3 for the worst. Can't say I'm too surprised with the top 5
No mention of Crouch... plucked off Aston Villa's bench, he didn't complete the great escape for us but without him we would have been ten points away, and we turned a tidy profit. Interesting though that Thomas is in the worst 5 because we were in financial trouble, but Schneiderlin and Davis who were a year before and after are in the top 5, at similar cost. For a little bit before Markus and Nicola saved us, I thought that it would be those signings (Skacel was the standout one) that finished us off. Maybe that's controvertial... happy to be wrong anyway (or just used to it).
There's a difference between signing a player for too much money when you're in trouble when he is old, and signing a player who is young, goes on to make a ton of appearances and has a high resale. Thomas was a terrible idea for many reasons, but chiefly it's his resale. If we'd been in dire trouble and not been bought, we could have easily recouped Morgans value. No bloody way we would have on Thomas. Like I said earlier, value is the key.