Worst ever signing?

[Citizen Kane.]

In bittersweet celebration of Ndombele finally hobbling out the door to go back to Lyon, hopefully permanently, I was giving some thought into the question of who has been pound for pound our worst signing ever?

I've only included candidates who played during my time supporting Spurs. Please feel free to suggest more names.

I guess there are a number of factors to weigh up:
- Cost and wages
- Level of expectation
- Mitigating circumstances
- What they actually contributed

Happy voting!

 

[PowerSpurs]

I voted Gilberto. It is a close run thing between him and David Jenkins...a signing from Arsenal....straight swap with Jimmy Robertson. In one match he received the ball in clear space on the wing and then ran off the pitch with it.

 

[Dier Hard]

Very tough trying to pick one, gonna need more time to see who I actually vote for.

If we're factoring in cost, expectation, ability, impact and attitude then the two big money buys are the frontrunners at the moment.

Ndombele - £55m - 10 goals and 9 assists in 91 appearances.
Costing us £5.5m per goal, £6.1m per assist.
Fat lazy prick, no work ethic, always cried when things got tough, rightfully booed off the pitch for taking the piss when subbed.

Lo Celso - £42m - 8 goals and 6 assists in 84 appearances.
Costing us £5.25m per goal, £7m per assist.
Completely useless footballer, made the physios work overtime, wasn't liked around the place and couldn't wait to get on a plane to Argentina at first opportunity.

These two players cost us far more than what they were worth and some.

Paulinho was probably the one I was most disappointed about though. I had huge hopes for him and he came after a superb season in Brazil along with finishing as the third best player at the Confederations Cup. Everything pointed towards him being a star. I do believe though that AVB completely ruined him and had Poch been the one to sign him and not inherit the broken player he was under AVB, it could've been a different story.

 

[Billy The Spur]

A difficult decision, but when you weigh everything up, attitude, bone idleness, lack of effort and desire, relative cost, relative wages, expectations etc, and 5 different managers all unable to get a tune out of him, it has to be Ndombele. At least most of the others tried hard, despite not being very good.

 

[The RDBD]

This should only have been put up the minute the window closes.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

It's pretty hard to look past Gilberto...unless Ndombele is standing in front of him, at which point you can't see him

Dalmat's an interesting one though, given he was almost identical to Ndombele: fans demanded he play every game because he'd do a fancy flick once a game, but he was a lazy prick who's mainly remembered these days for twatting Jamie O'Hara in training

 

[The Changing Man]

Its definitely between the first 3 on that list for me. Though I would concede that GIlberto was the worst player technically, he did cost less than £2m so to my mind the expectations were not as great as they were for Ndombele, Lo Celso and Paulinho.

Whilst Janssen and Soldado were extremely disappointing in terms of the goal return, both managed to maintain the support of the fans as they never looked disinterested or lacked for effort.

Rebrov and Postiga never really settled I am not sure our managers at the time ever reallu worked out how to get the best out of them, but that was typical of Spurs in that era.

Dalmat was only a loan who started OK, but apparently is attitude was what set him apart, a nasty piece of work by all accounts.

Bentley just a big time charlie who after 3 above would come fourth in the list of our greatest disappointments all though his goal in the NLD was worthy of note.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

I'm going to have to say Andy Booth, just purely for the utter lack of ambition.
Other signings may not have worked out, but that one just looked terrible.
He was genuinely worse up front than one of our centre-halves at the time.

 

[O.Spurcat]

I'm going to have to say Andy Booth, just purely for the utter lack of ambition.
Other signings may not have worked out, but that one just looked terrible.
He was genuinely worse up front than one of our centre-halves at the time.

There was a poster on the old Spurs 606 site who lived next door to Andy Booth. They were good mates, yet even he said Booth was crap

 

[KingHotspur]

Lo Celso. Big money. Very little talent, poor attitude (moaning on Instagram etc), not liked by team mates.

Closely followed by Ndombele who is definitely the most frustrating signing by Spurs for me. Got so much talent but mentally he’s a liability

 

[remembercolinlee]

Surprised Rasiak ain't on the list.
That was bloody awful.

Was at THAT uefa cup Gilberto game where redknapp took him off at half time.
Was so bad it was bloody hysterical.

Was also at the NLD where Redknapp played a b team including Bentley...the worse performance ever by any player in any competition, in any country in any century....so I'm voting him.

But a special mention for Darren Bent.
Not a great player but WTF were we doing signing him in 2007?

We had Berbatov, Keane, Defoe and Mido at the club and went and wasted £16m (massive money at they time) on him.

It effectively forced out Defoe (who we had to go and buy back) and weakened up massively.

 

[Dier Hard]

So after much debate I went with Lo Celso.

I could've flipped a coin on him and Ndombele to be honest. Two utterly horrendous wastes of money but ultimately a debut day goal, a sublime goal against Sheffield Utd, a helping hand in the demolition of Utd at Old Trafford and a few occasional stepovers leaves me with slightly more positive memories of Ndombele, rather than Lo Celso who got a goal off the bench against City.

How did we get it so wrong with these two though? Almost £100m... bloody hell.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Was also at the NLD where Redknapp played a b team including Bentley...the worse performance ever by any player in any competition, in any country in any century....so I'm voting him.

Played him on the left wing. Still pissed off at getting a bit wet.
Dos Santos on the right and possibly the least creative midfield three of all time.
Sandro on his debut, Livermore and Palacios. Redknapp should've been sacked for that game alone.

 

[The Changing Man]

Played him on the left wing. Still pissed off at getting a bit wet.
Dos Santos on the right and possibly the least creative midfield three of all time.
Sandro on his debut, Livermore and Palacios. Redknapp should've been sacked for that game alone.

Was that the one Pletikosa played in goal?

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Was that the one Pletikosa played in goal?

Yep. One game, two dodgy penalties.

 

[The Huddlefro]

I think we’ve had objectively worse players than Lo Celso and NDombele but given how much we paid for the pair, they have to be the winners

 

[Alfie Conn]

The first two have to be, due to cost and attitude but one for the older generation has to be John Lacy , my memory is hazy but a player from the generation of central defenders who's only job was to head the ball this lad was useless

 

[Dier Hard]

I think we’ve had objectively worse players than Lo Celso and NDombele but given how much we paid for the pair, they have to be the winners

Yeah if we're going out-right ability alone then I think Gilberto storms it from that list. But then only costing us about a £m or two, it's easy to see why.

When everything is factored in with regards to cost, wages, impact, attitude, availability etc, the latest two walk it by a mile, with the Argentine edging it for me. Injury prone, zero impact on the pitch barring about 6 games, one goal in the Prem, couldn't get away quickly enough to play for Argentina just to return to us injured and he has his own dedicated parody Twitter account highlighting some of his terrible bits of play.