It's a slow news week football-wise, so I thought a wee blast from the past might be fun. As the potential sale of Rangers continues to develop, chairman David Murray might not want to look at this list of reminders of where a lot of his money got wasted (for the sake of fairness, not to mention fun, there will be a Celtic list at some point too - otherwise someone will accuse me of sectarianism).
So, for the record, here are the ten worst Rangers signings of the 21st century...so far...
10) JEROME ROTHEN (loan from Paris St. Germain, September 2009)
Rothen by name, rotten by nature; Walter Smith has made few transfer market mistakes in his second spell as Rangers boss but this was one. The French winger won 13 caps, the last in 2008, and was the only signing that summer - he played eight games in an eight week period, the last of which was a dire performance in a 4-1 home humping by Romanians Unirea. He came down with "a viral illness" after that and was shipped out in January. At least he only cost four months' wages.
9) EGIL OSTENSTAD (free transfer from Blackburn, August 2003)
Alex McLeish really didn't have much cash to splash in the summer of 2003. My memory of the burly Norwegian forward's time at Ibrox is of an old man who looked years past it - yet I'm surprised to see that Ostenstad was only 31 when he signed for Rangers. A cult hero in his younger days at Southampton, he had achieved little in four years at Blackburn prior to this and started only two league games all year. His only goals came in league cup games against lower league teams St. Johnstone and Forfar.
8) MARCUS GAYLE (£1 million from Wimbledon, March 2001)
A very good example of the reckless spending during the Advocaat years - a couple of strikers injured with six weeks of the season left? No problem - here's nearly a million quid for a useful but unspectacular forward from down south. Four games and no goals later, he was shipped back to London - to sign for Watford - for £100,000 less.
7) MICHAEL BALL (£6.5 million from Everton, August 2001)
On the face of it, Ball, a 22 year old left back who had just won his first England cap, looked like quite a coup for Advocaat - but his four years in Govan were basically a nightmare. He was fined for swearing at his manager when subbed during his first Old Firm game, then, after only his eleventh appearance, he buggered his knee and was out for a year and a half. Then having worked his way back to fitness, he barely played at the beginning of the 2003-04 season because his 60th game would trigger a £500,000 payment to Everton. This was resolved - but he left in 2005 after only 78 appearances for the club, in a £500,000 move to PSV Eindhoven.
6) LIONEL LETIZI (free transfer from Paris St. Germain, June 2006)
One of Paul Le Guen's early moves as boss was to sign Letizi, who had been PSG's keeper for six years, to be his number one goalkeeper. He gifted Dunfermline a goal in his third league game, then was injured after his fourth and watched Allan McGregor put in a string of good performances as his replacement. Le Guebn controversially chose to restore Letizi to the side despite this, and was "rewarded" when another catastrophic blunder gifted Inverness a 1-0 win at Ibrox. Despite consternation from the supporters, he stuck with the Frenchman for another few weeks, but eventually dumped him. After a grand total of eight appearances, it was no surprise when he left shortly after Le Guen's dismissal.
5) KARL SVENSSON (£600,000 from IFK Gothenburg, May 2006)
Another to follow Le Guen into Ibrox, Svensson was as catastrophic as every other signing the Frenchman made as Rangers coach (with the exception of Sasa Papac). His poor performances at centre-half were all the more mystifying as he had been in Sweden's World Cup squad prior to his move to Scotland. He couldn't head the ball and he couldn't tackle, and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than Glasgow. Despite this, his boss persisted with him right up to his sacking, but he made only seven appearances under Walter Smith before signing for Caen on a free.
4) NUNO CAPUCHO (£670,000 from Porto, June 2003)
As I said before, McLeish had almost no transfer kitty at all that summer - so why splash it on this hapless Portuguese wide man? That said, at the time it looked like a decent deal for a 31 year old who had played at the 2002 World Cup and started in the 2003 UEFA Cup final. Don't be fooled by the fact he scored six goals in his solitary season - I remember seeing him being kept under control by Aberdeen's Scott Morrison (not exactly the best full-back ever) at Pittodrie that season. He was so bad that everyone laughed at him instead of booing him.
3) JOSE-KARL PIERRE-FANFAN (free transfer from Paris St. Germain, July 2005)
Rangers' dealings with Paris St. Germain have not been particularly good, have they? At least they didn't have to pay a fee for Fanfan, who scored on his debut but fell out with McLeish and played only nine games, none after November. Yet he hung around for another nine months, leeching wages until his release in August 2006.
2) FILIP SEBO (£1.8 million from Austria Vienna, August 2006)
If we chuckled at Capucho, we sniggered at Sebo. a clown of a striker from Slovakia, who displayed plenty of energy - but generally just ran around the park in a manner more befitting of a headless chicken. Austria Vienna's chairman mischievously admitted, 6 months after his transfer, that he would have accepted a third of what Rangers paid for him. He made only four league starts (I saw one of those in Inverness, where he was so bad the home fans started chanting his name) and was generally used as an "impact sub", though it is hard to say what impact was ever made. Sebo scored two goals for Rangers before leaving for the French league; believe it or not, he was recalled to his national team this year.
1) TORE ANDRE FLO (£12 million from Chelsea, November 2000)I actually feel a little sick in the stomach at the thought of a Scottish team paying this sort of fee, especially for a good, but hardly world-class player like Flo - the Norwegian's reputation was destroyed by the fact that he simply couldn't match Henrik Larsson's scoring rate. His 38 goals in 72 games for Rangers is not that bad, but £12 million? Dear god. Rangers at least got £6.75 million back when they sold him to Sunderland in 2002.
Any others you can think of? Certainly I nearly put Bert Konterman on this list as well.
Ah, the memories...
L.
No comments:
Post a Comment