Biggest Flops

Big Jim Lawton.
David Woodfield is a contender. Signed for a big fee from Wolves and got injured after about 15 minutes in his first game. Barely played for us again. I think that he went on to coach the Saudi national team.
Sir Frederick Spencer Lister disappointingly didn't turn professional with us. Fortunately we haven't sign anyone who preferred to be a world leading bacteriologist rather than play for us since then.

 

Good shout. Another player I was very excited about when we signed.

 

He really didn’t.

 

Oh yes he did.

 

It was admittedly his best spell in a Watford shirt (low bar), but there were a number of others who made a significant contribution to that promotion. Will Hughes for starters.

 

I recall Ellington's first goal quite well, but not because of the man himself. It came in a match against Charlton (finished 1-1) which was remembered for us giving a debut to Callum Davenport in defence, who was playing great and looked like being a real asset to the team until a freak collision with one of our players saw him stretchered off with what turned out to be a broken neck. He never played for us again.

As for biggest flops - for me, one I file under 'massive disappointment' was Mario Suarez. There seemed to be loads of hype and excitement around him possibly joining, followed by joy when it was confirmed he had - only for him to be barely half the player Jurado was. Just looked him up - made 17 appearances in total for €4m......

 

That’s why I said almost, he wasn’t the only factor but was a big reason. He scored 13 league goals, 4 more than João Pedro.

Hughes, Pedro, Kiko, Troost, Masina, Sema and others (even Deeney and Foster to an extent) all played a hand in promotion but imo Sarr’s goals were a huge part in why we finished 2nd

 

They were but let's not forget he was a £30/40m player in the Championship and managed 23 goals in 78 games (if you take away his penalties he was a one in four player). He scored fewer goals that first Championship season than Jamal Lowe who's never cost more than £1.5m in his career and was also playing as a winger in a much worse team. Yes he helped us get promoted once but that's the least we could've expected - he should have torn the division apart for the money we paid for him.

 

Biggest flop was Ellington .... however I would also say Andre Gray was an equally big flop given the fee and wages we paid for too him, versus his contribution on the pitch

 

I was mainly going for the panto vibe.

But Sarr did win us the Reading game for one.

 

Oh no he didn’t.

 

Oh yes he did.

 

He’s behind you!

 

Bonsor was so upset made Kirby, make space to use Woodfield as a first team coach as he was signed up on a contract and wages.

I always thought Eric Steele a poor signing. We ended up back with Steve Sherwood as first choice. A keeper the late great (but at the time ageing), Andy Rankin had kept out if the team for ages.

 

Overall, I would go for Oulare. Hated his signing for so many reasons - Bruges fans were laughing at us spending £6m on a player that couldn't stay fit, it heralded the start of the Mogi era, we never gave Vydra or Forestieri a shot at Premier League football because of this signing (alongside Ibarbo and Diamante). Ok, on the latter point, they probably wouldn't have been good enough but momentum is important in a career and they couldn't possibly have contributed less than those three replacements.

He's now a 27 year old striker with a sum total of 20 career league goals to his name, playing in the Belgian second tier. Quite why anyone thought it was a good idea to make him our most expensive signing on promotion is beyond me. Managed five minutes of PL football.

 

Oh gosh yes. Do you remember his failed attempt at a header at Old Trafford? (I think)

 

Yes but we “beat Man U to his signature” remember.
Ellington, Gray and Baardsen for me given what we paid for them in the context of our then budgets.

 

The only saving grace for me re Gray, and that’s why I voted for Ellington, was that he did manage to score a few highly valuable goals for us (for example, the winner in the FA cup quarter final plus the assist for the winner in the semi). Yes yes he didn’t score enough, cost way too much and of course came from down the road, but I feel he still contributed slightly more of significance than Ellington.

(Awaits ridicule now lol)

 

Definitely remember one where he took a big run up, rose like a salmon but had misjudged the ball so badly that it sailed a comfortable five foot over his head. Have a feeling it might have been in a home game (his one start in the FA Cup vs Newcastle where he was hooked at half time)...

 

I think the formula to calculate the magnitude of a flop would probably look like this

F= E x T/ P x A

Where

F= Magnitude of Flop
E= Expectation of fan base
T= Transfer fee of player
P= Performance quality in matches played
A= Appearances made

 

Good stuff.
So now we have force in Newtons, current in Amperes and floppiness in Rosses.

 

That rings a bell. There was one away at Swansea too I think.

 

You'd need to rationalise E as a figure between 1 and 10. And T as a number that's comparable to the average cost of transfers in the particular year (or as a percentage of our annual transfer spend that year?)

For example Ellington expectancy levels out of 10 I'd rate 8. Sarr 10, Gray 9, Oulare 5, Kevin Phillips 1.

If we spent 50m overall in one season and Sarr was 40m, 40m is 80% of budget. Remove the percentage and call it 8 out of 10.

 

Good points, we need to try and source some seed VC money and take this further .

 

Trevor Senior

You can argue about Sarr and Gray, they were not flops just not value for money

 

Good points. I'd suggest making E and P coefficients with values from zero to 1.

I've also wondered whether the monetary cost should not just be the transfer fee, but the nett cost i.e. initial transfer fee paid - transfer fee obtained on departure. I came to this from imagining getting Haarland in January for say £150m, getting 25 appearances in half a season. Even with perfect performance, the enormous cost and maximum expectation would potentially make him a bad flop. But, factor in selling him on for say £140m, and his Floppy score goes down by a factor of 15.

 

Careful - you'll be creating the next xG if you're not careful. Don't give @reids any more work to do for us

 

I've been thinking some more and would like to suggest the following:

F = C x (Pe x Ae)/(Pa x Aa)

where
F = Magnitude of flop (in £)
C = Total nett cost (Wages + Transfer fee in - transfer fee out)
Pe = Average performance expected (as a percentage)
Ae = Appearances expected
Pa = Actual average performance (as a percentage)
Aa = Actual appearances

So, for example, hypothetical winger S
F = £30m x (80 x 100)/(40 x 125) = £48m

Fantasy: Haarland for half a season, but he gets injured after 5 perfect performances
F = £10m x (95 x 25)/(100 x 5) = £47.5m

Hypothetical striker courtesy of our favourite Belgian
F = £8m x (30 x 40)/(10 x 4) = £240m

(This is what comes of inspiring retired engineers to think about stuff... and sorry @BigRossLittleRoss but the units of F are now £)

 

Has anyone mentioned Charlie Miller yet ? Got to be on the list. Too often Brahms and Liszt!

 

Seconded.

 

How would that scale for a transfer market where values were more conservative? Using inflation rates to work out a relative exchange rate?

And wouldn't there need to be a provision for the price paid. For example if we invested a legitimate £16m into a left wing back (say from Udinese) who was (despite independent verification) only considered ~£3m by the wider football market - would that have an effect on how big a flop someone was?

I like this idea though!

 

You know you want to Skyla!

 

Good points. I think it’s the actual cost to the club that matters, so paying over the odds against what the wider market would pay increases the likelihood of a high F value. Not that WFC would make that mistake.