Top Ten: Worst summer signings
Alex King
Posted on: 26 October 2009 - 16:26
Football
While La Liga may now claim to have the majority of the world’s best players, acquiring such stars did not come cheap. In a summer that saw Real Madrid and Manchester City inflate the market quite ridiculously, some rather average players have been bought and sold for some rather outrageous sums of money. There have also been the usual ‘take a punt on a guy who’s clearly past it’ signings, as well as plenty of baffling transfer activity between the Premiership’s less affluent clubs. Sport.co.uk now looks at the ten worst signings of the summer.
1. Joleon Lescott
Sure, he’s a good solid defender, and will probably travel to South Africa as England’s fourth choice centre-back, but the price he moved to the newly rich Citizens for was frankly ridiculous - £24m? Such an exorbitant fee must leave a certain Carlos Tevez feeling pretty useless as he was bought for a mere £1 more than the ex-Wolves centre-half. While he’s turned in a fair few good performances for City, he doesn’t look as solid as he did under Moyes, and goal-scoring abilities have seemingly dried up.
2. Kolo Toure
Unfortunately, Lescott is joined at the top of the list by his defensive partner. Once again, it’s not a bad signing – he’s a solid enough player who knows the Premier League inside out. But the £16m that changed hands for his services seems verging on insanity. He was never the most reliable of centre-backs at Arsenal, and is probably just past his peak in terms of age. Far from a sound financial investment.
3. Michael Owen
Lovers of the red-nosed one will call Fergie’s move a shrewd one. Realists, however, will suggest that Owen was past it when Newcastle signed him, let alone nowadays. But it was a free transfer, so what have Man Utd got to worry about? Well, it’s free in terms of Newcastle getting nothing, but not free in terms of paying the steep wages Owen demands, especially as he is likely to play fewer games than Gary Neville and score fewer goals than John O’Shea.
4. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
The Swede is undoubtedly one of the world’s finest strikers, but the deal which brought him to Barca simply baffles. Ibrahimovic can be brilliant when he feels like it, but he is one of the laziest, sulkiest professionals in the game at times, and, unlike Samuel Eto’o who moved in the opposite direction, he has gone missing in almost every big game of his career. Barca would have been better trying their upmost to keep hold of the Cameroonian, even if he is slightly older. They would have also saved £40m.
5. Michael Brown
Signed from Wigan for a ‘nominal’ fee, some would say Brown is the sort of battling player that a team like Portsmouth are crying out for. But Brown seems to bring trouble with him whenever he goes, and will probably do more bad than good to Portsmouth’s survival aspirations. Eight appearances, no goals or assists and one-sending off already suggests that he might have a bit of a shocker this year.
6. Ross Turnbull
Chelsea seem to sign someone rather left-field every summer, and this July it was no difference, as they signed Middlesbrough goalie and loan-expert Ross Turnbull. In seven years for Boro, he managed a measly twenty-seven starts, and was loaned out six times. Chelsea’s purchase of him made little sense, especially when he suggested he would be battling for a first-team birth. In Cech’s absence this season, it has been Hilario, rather than Turnbull, that has figured. They signed him on a free, however, so maybe they’re planning a Sidwell-esque bit of good business.
7. Jason Scotland
Certain managers just love taking players with them wherever they go – you get the feeling that Defoe and Crouch, for example, would follow ‘Arry to the ends of the earth if he asked them. So it was little surprise that Roberto Martinez brought Jason Scotland, one of the stars of his Swansea reign, along with him to Wigan. Unfortunately, however, Martinez seems to have underestimated the gap in quality between the top two tiers of English football. Scotland has so far struggled to look like anything resembling a Premiership striker.
8. Sotirios Kyrgiakos
The Greece international was one of the many players to step through the Anfield doors with the label of ‘quality’ from Benitez. He seems one of the least deserving of this oft-used phrase of the Spaniard’s, however. Signed as a replacement for the mythical Sami Hyypia, he had a lot to live up to, as has so far failed. But, as fourth choice centre-half and a mere £1.5m, it looks like good business compared to some of Benitez’s other defensive signings of recent years.
9. Robert Huth
Tony Pulis hasn’t got the resources to be splashing out Lescott-esque fees on defenders, but he could have done a bit better with this bit of business. Huth has scored, defended rather inconsistently, and thrown a swinging kung-fu slap already this season. And all for the princely sum of £5m, which seems steep for someone who has not always appeared to be of Premier League quality. At least his slap was good.
10. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
It’s Phil Brown’s very own Michael Owen-esque transfer of the summer. The ingredients – take one aged striker that no-one else really wants, pay his wages and hope that he suddenly becomes good again. Jan the man has scored this season, but is starting to look like he should hang up his boots and his shirt with a ridiculous amount of letters on.