The worst signings of the Premiership season - Part 1

Last season, I rather enjoyed compiling a top ten of the worst signings of the season in the SPL - which, if you recall, was topped by the hapless Rory Boulding (just a day before he scored the goal that clinched Dundee United's top six place).  So I thought I'd repeat it this year...but the number of candidates was overwhelming.  Let's face it - the managers of the Scottish Premiership clubs have not distinguished themselves in the last couple of transfer windows.  So the list has been expanded dramatically this year, to twenty-five!  And that doesn't include the likes of Reuben Gabriel, who was useless for Kilmarnock but technically signed for them last March.  Every team - yes, even Hearts - has someone who makes this list, complete with unflattering pictures.

So let's start the countdown...

25. JOHN BAIRD (Partick Thistle)

Alan Archibald's rationale for signing Baird was that he is a busy, hardworking striker who will put in a shift up front on his own, and therefore he could be like-for-like competition for Kris Doolan.  But Baird was a regular for Dundee last season where he regularly proved that an excellent attitude does not compensate for the ability required to play in the top flight...otherwise, someone would have offered the Duracell Bunny a contract by now.  His last start for the club was in mid-September and he was released in January having failed to muster a single goal.  He moved back to former club Raith Rovers where his return to form suggests the Championship is his level.

24. BEN GREENHALGH (Inverness CT)

Perhaps too much was expected of a player whose biggest accomplishments came off the pitch, such as winning the Sky One show Football's Next Star and working as a body double for Cristiano Ronaldo.  On the pitch, he had never played for a club above Conference level, and it turns out that he really is all style and no substance.  His impression of Ronaldo doesn't stretch to the field of play, sadly.  He's started just one game for Inverness and has managed just 21 minutes of football since mid-October.  Don't expect his contract to be renewed.

23. FRASER MULLEN (Hibernian)

A youngster who moves between the Edinburgh clubs needs to be made of strong stuff, especially when, as a Hearts player, he had written derogatory tweets about Hibs in the past.  Unfortunately, Mullen's brief spell at Easter Road will be mainly remembered for the homophobic slur he posted on twitter after one jibe too many at him.  By then, he was long out of the first team reckoning, binned after four games early in the season.  It's worth remembering that Hibs were only 1-0 down to Malmo when he made his debut as a 24th minute sub.  They lost 7-0.  Mullen was so poor that Pat Fenlon eventually preferred using a left footed midfielder (Lewis Stevenson) at right back instead of him.  He joined Raith Rovers in January, but at the moment he can't break into their starting lineup either.

22. CALVIN ZOLA (Aberdeen)

I bet the adjectives 'lumbering'  and 'clumsy' have been used to describe Zola a lot over the years.  A rare failed signing by Derek McInnes, he started the season as the Dons' starting striker.  However, he has committed several times more fouls than he has scored goals (three) for Aberdeen.  He's now even behind Scott Vernon - Scott Vernon! - in the pecking order for a place up front.  With Adam Rooney now the first choice centre forward, Zola is well out of the reckoning at Pittodrie.  I suspect McInnes wishes he hadn't given the big man a two year deal.

21. CURTIS ALLEN (Inverness CT)

Who, you ask?  Well, exactly.  Allen, a prolific goalscorer in Northern Irish football, was supposed to offer Caley Thistle an alternative to Billy Mckay in attack.  However he got injured in pre-season...then he played a few reserve games and looked off the pace...then he got injured again...then he got homesick...and in the end it was a complete waste of time for the player and the club.  So he returned home in December and promptly scored 6 goals in his first 5 games for Glentoran.  So he can't be that awful.  But Caley Thistle really could have done with someone who could take the pressure off Mckay.

20. GUNNAR NIELSEN (Motherwell)

Darren Randolph was always going to be a difficult act to follow, but Motherwell fans would surely have been reassured that Stuart McCall had signed an international, former English Premier League keeper as a replacement.  However, hapless Faroese stopper Nielsen spent six years on the books of English Premier League clubs but made only a single appearance in that league.  Motherwell have conceded 28 goals in his 13 league starts, and only 14 in their other 16 league games.  He's only seen action this season because of injuries to Lee Hollis, hardly a top goalie, and it's a sad indictment of Motherwell's problem between the sticks that their best goalkeeper this season was Dan Twardzik, who made a handful of appearances as an emergency loanee in December.

19. STEVEN MOUYOKOLO (Celtic)

When Steven Mouyokolo was at Hull City, I remember him being quite good.  That, however, was in 2010, and this is 2014; in the three seasons before he arrived in Glasgow, the French defender had made only 11 first team appearances, mostly due to injuries.  So it was depressingly predictable that, within a month of joining Celtic, he was back on the treatment table after rupturing his achilles tendon.  And we haven't seen him since.  Unless he gets another chance when fit, he will only be remembered by fans for his dreadful performance in the defeat to Shakhtar Karagandy in the Champions League in August.  I do hope he was only on a pay-as-you-play deal.

18. KYLE JACOBS (Kilmarnock)

What on earth possessed Allan Johnston to sign Jacobs, an average Championship midfielder at Livingston, where he wasn't even the best Jacobs in the team (his older brother Keaghan is superior)?  At least the South African was only given a six month 'prove-it' contract, because it took only about six weeks for Johnston to be certain that he wasn't the answer.  The last of Jacobs' five starts was in mid-September.  He never played again for Killie, but luckily for him Livingston kept the door open for him and resigned him in January.  And so he's back being an average Championship midfielder again.

17. PAUL MCCALLUM (Hearts)

Is it harsh for me to write off McCallum, who only joined the Jambos on loan from West Ham at the end of January?  I don't think so.  Remember that the transfer embargo meant Hearts could only sign a player because one had left - so when Adam King signed for Swansea, Gary Locke had the chance to bring in an under-21 player of his choice.  He really needed someone who could make an impact.  On his debut as a sub in the League Cup semi final, the striker missed a penalty in the shootout.  He started the next league game, again against Inverness, where he offered nothing but half a dozen petty fouls.  Before he came, Hearts looked far more dangerous up front with Dale Carrick and Callum Paterson in combination - it looks like Locke has realized that too, dropping McCallum back to the bench.

16. CHRIS IWELUMO (St Johnstone)

If it is cruel of me to damn Iwelumo less than 2 months after he arrived in Perth, it's even crueller to use that picture from that miss all those years ago, rather than one of him moving slovenly around the pitch in a St Johnstone shirt.  But, five years on, I'm still revisiting that particular trauma with my psychologist, so I'm hardly going to pass up an opportunity to assassinate his character.  As for his move to St Johnstone, his role seems to be purely as 'a big striker to punt long balls at if we need a goal'.  So far he has been used entirely as a substitute.  In his 90 minutes of league action for them, they have only scored a single goal, and it wasn't by him.  With Stevie May, Nigel Hasselbaink, Steven Maclean and Michael O'Halloran on the books, what was the point of this signing?  At least he's not as bad as Rory Fallon (more on that later)...

15. CHRIS ERSKINE (Dundee United)

Some perfectly sensible signings just don't work out, and this is one of them.  Chris Erskine was superb at Partick Thistle under Jackie McNamara, so no wonder he brought the attacking midfielder to Tannadice last summer.  But his half-season in Dundee was little short of a nightmare.  Even in his first home game he was booed off the park by his supporters.  Having been relegated to the bench, he then picked up a string of injuries which limited him to a solitary subs appearance between August and December.  He was restored to the lineup for a couple of games after that, but this author saw him turn in a performance so poor at Ross County that it made the eyes burn.  Thankfully, the outstanding form of players like Ryan Gauld, Nadir Ciftci and Gary Mackay-Steven meant that Erskine could be loaned back to Firhill in January, where he has rediscovered his mojo and grabbed a couple of goals.  There's still hope for him yet, just probably not at Dundee United.

14. ORHAN MUSTAFI (Ross County)

When you look for a picture of Orhan Mustafi on Google Images, you actually get a bunch of grumpy photos of Ross County manager Derek Adams, which seems appropriate.  Signed on loan from Grasshopper Zurich, Mustafi must have some talent, given that he played five times for Switzerland's under-21 team.  County fans never got to see it though, given that he was completely unfit when he arrived in August and then broke his toe.  His only goal came in a League Cup defeat at Stranraer.  His second start for County came on Boxing Day in Aberdeen, where he was subbed at half-time.  He returned to Switzerland a few days later.

13. AMIDO BALDE (Celtic)

Celtic spent £1.8m on the big Portuguese striker last summer, an awful lot of money for a player who had scored only 9 times in the Portuguese League in 2012-13, but it's never been clear why; he doesn't fit into their current style of play at all, nor does he have the ability to play wide like Celtic's other big striker, Georgios Samaras.  Balde has made only two starts for the club - one in August, and one in November.  Given that he has been a fixture on the subs bench, Neil Lennon seems to see him purely as a big man to throw on late in a game if Celtic need to play direct in search of a goal...which, of course, isn't often at all.  So far, Celtic have paid £600,000 for every goal he has scored.  He's done so well that Lennon brought in two more strikers - Teemu Pukki and Leigh Griffiths - since he was signed.

12. MARK KERR (Partick Thistle)

Do you remember, years ago, when Mark Kerr was one of Scottish football's bright young things when he was a teenager at Falkirk?  Eventually he turned into a solid midfield player at Dundee United and Aberdeen, but he spent the last two seasons at Dunfermline, who got relegated, and Dundee, who got relegated.  At neither side did Kerr look like he was still up to playing at Scotland's highest level.  So why on earth did Alan Archibald offer him a contract?  It was all the more bizarre given that he also signed Isaac Osbourne, who plays a similar role but with far more effectiveness.  Kerr never played a league game for Thistle.  He must have realized the game was up when he wasn't considered for selection even when Osbourne got crocked.  He's now joined Queen of the South, after rebutting an offer from Albion Rovers.

11. DAVID SILVA (Kilmarnock)

If you thought the signing of Kyle Jacobs was daft, then this was lunacy.  Winger Silva wasn't actually any good during his first two year spell at Rugby Park, which finished in 2012.  Yet Allan Johnston took him back on trial a year later and signed him in September.  He clearly wasn't fit, though, and after a handful of appearances he had disappeared from first team contention by October.  All Silva's signing accomplished was to risk hampering the development of youngsters such as Rory McKenzie and Chris Johnston by denying them game time.  Killie dumped him in January and brought in David Moberg Karlsson on loan from Sunderland, who is rather better.


So, quite a dreadful list, no?  Eight of those fifteen players are no longer at their club, while two are January signings who I've already written off.

Right, the top ten will be with you in a few days.  Who do you think will be number one?

L.