This is quite a good shout. 1. Big Ron.. Because he was our best number 9 in my time 2.Jimmy Case.. Looked after and brought on young players whilst doing his primary role for 30 grand??? 3. Killer.. Just the best centre back in the last 50 years at a great price 4. Rickie Lambert.. The talisman for 2 promotions. 5. Dave Webb.. The reason we made the first division..
I am surprised that Kevin Keegan or Peter Shilton were not in any of the lists going back further than the 15 years.
Killer is an interesting one. As is Niemi. Both two of my favourite players we've had in the past 25 year or so (Niemi probably my all-time favourite player, a terrifying Finnish deity between the sticks. Holy Christ was he ever bloody good. Also a very good ice hockey goalkeeper with the same name so I propose we sign the next freakishly tall child in Finland with that name) but also both were signed for not insignificant fees and didn't make that many appearances. Killer was wonderful but when he got crocked he was only at about 60 or so. Niemi made over 100 appearances but that becomes fairly irrelevant when he left for nothing and kinda forced a move with protests so we got nothing for him when the year we went down he was worth a lot, probably could have gone to United (Ferguson wanted him and nearly got him). I'm not sure they'd make my list, it'd only be for sentiment.
I love Boruc, but I wish we could have Niemi back in his prime. Any defence would feel so safe with him behind them.
Such a great goalkeeper. For the few years he was here I honestly believe he was better than Petr Cech. They always wrote up Cech as the best, but Niemi was better than both the Petr Cechs. Fractured Skull Petr Cech and the regular type!
Qwerty does strike a good point actually. With hindsight we can see that we made a great purchase in young Frenchie. However I can't have been the only one at the time that thought, given the circumstances, this was a risky move and unnecessary move. At least things turned out the way they did hey.
Yeah, but it was a gamble against promotion, a la Leeds and countless others. The club probably knew if we staid in the Championship we were effed so gambled on getting us up. That usually leads to panic buying. And Wayne Thomas. And some of the other weird ****e we signed at that time. Christ it feels like we signed 100 players that only stayed for a couple of years. Raziak. Idiakez. Liptak! That other Polish fella!
I nearly forgot how good Niemi was, then I watched this video again... [video=youtube;aQMRF29gK24]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQMRF29gK24[/video] One of the best shot stoppers in the world at his peak.
He was batty too. Not batty like Boruc who will lose it and hit someone. But Antti-social, listening to Finnish death metal, eccentric kinda batty.
Yeah, the original article has a comment from the author which says we got him on a free which I'm sure is not true. I'm sure we got him for about 3.5m. That would make him pretty much our biggest flop ever. Just checked his numbers, a 2% start ratio and a fee of 3.5m. Adjusted for market inflation that would be 4.6m today.
Think they said Ali Dia was free not Delgado. Do you remember Delgado's only goal. he was the last person in the ground who knew he'd scored.
A commenter on the article asks about Delgado and the writer replied saying he was on a free. I forgot about this: [video=youtube;3LCojBgjSX8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LCojBgjSX8[/video] I'm really sorry Rory Delap!
