Biggest Flops

In terms of money spent and expectancy the following spring to mind:

Senior
Ellington
Gray
Sarr

All of the above happened to be strikers/wingers. Are there any others big flops over the years, in defensive, midfield or goalkeeper positions? I can only think of ex Everton and scummer defender Matt Jackson who only made a handful of inept performances under Boothroyd before being moved on.

 

Pretty much most signed by Vialli: Blondeau, Okon, Vega, Hughes leap to mind. You could also argue Gayle too as he was bought as a striker but did a reasonable job under Lewington as a defender.

 

Ellington was a car crash. Got to be the worst by a country mile.

 

Espen Baardsen was a huge disappointment. Thought he’d be our keeper for a decade.

 

95% of any deal Giaretta has ever made.

 

I think I would vote for Ellington. Several reasons. Firstly the huge transfer fee (by our standards back then). Secondly, there was an argument that we didn’t need him anyway as we had King and Hendo up top, and scoring regularly. And thirdly, his arrival as a regular starter coincided with a shocking loss of form from us after a wonderful start to the season (there were other factors at play too, he can’t be solely blamed).

I think to qualify as a flop there has to be both a big fee and a big level of expectation, and Ellington ticked both boxes as he’d done very well at Brom.

I recall that on his debut, at home, he actually hit the post and I often wonder how his Watford career might have gone with the confidence boost of a goal in front of us to get off the mark. Who knows.

By no means in the same league, but that 07-08 season also saw the arrival of the much-hyped Collins John too. Eventually!

 

Harsh on Sarr imho as he did well at the start, needed to sell earlier.

Ellington without shadow of a doubt

The Bald Italian as a whole.

I seem to remember we've bought more than one ex-international crock who had good potential to improve the teamm, who barely played, drew a large salary then fecked off to another club for free and doing well there.

 

I'd forgotten about Collins John. An unmitigated disaster. A long drawn out negotiation to get him from Fulham where he'd be very successful and ends up playing one game, I think, for us. What happened there? Another bizarre signing at the latter part of Boothroyd's reign.

 

I know many won't agree but I have to say Micah Hyde.

And of course Neuton.

 

Didn't he have one leg longer than the other of am I just making that up?

 

He was due to join us one season but didn’t. He eventually played 5 times for us on loan. Didn’t score. Got injured. Returned to his parent club early. We didn’t take up the option of signing him permanently.

@hornmeister I was interested to read your recollection of him as actually having two legs!

 

That’s a good shout. I remember being excited when he joined us along with Nielsen, the season after our relegation from the PL under GT. He’d always looked good when playing for Spurs and even helped them to win a trophy! Quite an accolade at that club lol

I wonder if with us it was more a mental or motivational attitude problem than anything to do with ability, as I believe he retired from the sport now soon after leaving us? A genuine case of us practically ending a player’s career, although of course it was his decision and I’m sure he had offers to go elsewhere.

 

Why Micah Hyde? He formed an excellent partnership with Richard Johnson in those back to back fairytale promotions under GT, chipping in with his fair share of goals and assists.

 

You're forcing it with that one.

 

Micah Hyde? That's staggering! Absolutely brilliant in the two promotion seasons. Brought the best out of Richard Johnson. Did well in the Premier League season but possibly had to shoulder too much of the burden when Johnno was injured by Gerrard at Anfield early in the season. Hugely liked by GT and one of the ones he thought might have gone on to establish himself as a Premier League player. Made 250 appearances for Watford, meaning he cost about a grand per match in terms of transfer fee!

 

Oh dear

 

If this is a thread for whoosh magnets then I nominate John Barnes. A set of kit was at least two pairs of shorts too much

 

Ludicrous chat. Anyone who scores against those ****s up the road are worth every penny.

 

Not sure why Sarr is on your list when you have the following shower of shyte (amongst many, many others):

Peneranda
Jurado
Oulare
Success
Sinclair
Murray
Kalu
Fletcher
Tufan
Rose
Manaj
Kabba
Prince Bauben

 

Nordin Wooter. Signed by GT for close to £1m and produced very little, one ‘wonder goal’ aside.

 

Sarr I think is harsh. Yes at times he was incredibly frustrating but almost single handily got us promoted during the COVID season in 2021. For his price tag maybe but personally I think he did okay.

Ellington and Gray were far worse. As were players like Victor Ibarbo (who I’m convinced we only signed because someone had seen how quick he was on FIFA) and Diamanti.

 

Gary Plumley

 

I thought he scored in his first home game

 

Ellington was already on a huge decline. I bet WBA would have taken half what we offered. He was clearly more interested in religion and had long lost any interest in football, but Boothroyd's opinion of himself was so big, he thought he could make anyone a star.

These players have a duty to perform, but the owners have even more of a duty to carry out proper due diligence.

Those duds from Mogi feel less like poor footballing choices and more that they were done for reasons other than on pitch performances.

 

Ellington by absolute miles

 

I agree with all of the above as flops but were there any huge expectations or price tags attached to any of them compared to the ones I've mentioned?

 

Nathan Ellington….without a doubt. Closely followed by Fletcher, Sinclair and Ramon Vega.

 

Someone from WBA who worked at the club told me, they couldn’t believe how much we paid, we offered they said no and we kept offering until they said yes! They would I believe have taken less!

 

Stuart Rimmer

 

I liked him.

 

Hi my friend. Don’t think he did. He came on as a sub v Ipswich and hit the post. ‘Caused havoc’ according to a proud Aidy B. Hmm, caused havoc of a negative kind to our finances and fortunes, more like.

I don’t think he scored for us for ages after his arrival

 

I bow to your greater knowledge. I could have sworn he scored on his debut but you are correct. Either way he was absolute bobbins

 

Think there's a very strong case for Sarr if you are thinking in terms of the wider context of the signing rather than just the performances of the player.

We'd just had our best finish in the Premier League era and reached a cup final. We had delusions of being the "best of the rest" and thinking about Europe. So how did we choose to kick on? By not strengthening our creaky, ageing defence but instead dashing the best part of £40m (pretty much our whole budget) on a very shy young man who could only really play as a winger when our head coach used a narrow system.

The club obviously thought they could get him in for £40m and flip him for £70-80m but seem to have given no thought as to his personality and the type of player he was. Other factors came to the fore too but choosing to blow all of our budget on him instead of a more measured approach to strengthening the squad was a massive factor in our first narrow relegation.

After that we had to have a fire sale and even though we went back up in no small part due to his late season form, the squad was garbage for the PL and it was no suprise to see us back down. The signing of Sarr is a major reason why we are where we are now.

That's not to say he's a bad player, he was fine for the most part. But he was only ever a £15-20m player, not one to obliterate your transfer record for and bet the house on. None of this is his fault of course and I don't even blame him for some of the more lacklustre performances during his time here, I think a lot of that was down to confidence rather than application (until perhaps near the very end).

I like him, hope he does well in a better team but his signing was one of the dumbest things the Pozzos have done, as evidenced by where we are now.

Edit: biggest flop isn't quite correct for him but still think there's a case for one of the worst signings all things considered.

 

I did have to check it though after seeing your post. As my memory isn’t what it was!