Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Norman Hubbard



Money down the drain

Norman Hubbard

'What a waste of money'.

Kewell celebrates escaping the Norman Hubbard cut. (MatthewLewis/GettyImages)

Football fans can be succinct in their analysis of a player and their
criticisms often have merit. Some signings simply do not work out and each of
Soccernet's pick of the poorest signings meet the criteria for the terrace
chants; quite simply, they have not proved worth the investment in them.


Not that every player who makes a slow start can automatically be written off
as a poor buy. Blackburn spent ?.5 million on Barry Ferguson. Though he is
yet to justify that fee, the injury that curtailed his season is a prime
cause. Therefore, he does not qualify for that list. Nor, perhaps more
controversially, is there a place for Harry Kewell. Though falling some way
short of his best form, the Australian should still prove a worthwhile buy
during his stay at Anfield.

No matter. There is hardly a shortage of ill-advised signings, players who
did not live up to their billing and, in some cases, had a disastrous effect
on their team's season.

Indeed, such was the competition for places that Francis Jeffers, Lee Bowyer,
Boris Zivkovic and Steffen Iversen did not even make the top 10 worst
Premiership buys.





10. Juan Sebastian Veron (Chelsea, ?5 million)
Scapegoat and enigma in equal measures, Juan Sebastian Veron may be
unfortunate to be classed as a bad buy. He has played a significant role in
three of Chelsea's most convincing wins this season (against Liverpool, Lazio
and Newcastle) and missed much of the campaign with a back problem.

But a ?5 million price tag and one of the Premiership's largest wages brings
a level of expectation and Veron has failed to deliver.

Usurped by the irreplaceable Frank Lampard for his favoured central midfield
position, he has become a bit-part player, regularly omitted from the squad
for away trips.




9. Steve McManaman (Manchester City, free transfer)
How expensive can a free transfer signing be? Very, in the case of Steve
McManaman, who earns an estimated ?0,000 a week. McManaman made a glorious
return to English football as Aston Villa were beaten 4-1 on his debut.

Since then, however, his impact has been negligible and in a Manchester City
midfield packed with bad buys (Trevor Sinclair, Paul Bosvelt and Claudio
Reyna), all have been upstaged by the homegrown talents of Shaun
Wright-Phillips and Joey Barton.

Unable to establish himself as a first choice either in the centre of
midfield or on the wing, McManaman was conspicuously absent from the City
team who beat Newcastle to guarantee their Premiership status for another
season.




8. Neil McCann (Southampton, ?.75 million)
Southampton wanted Javier de Pedro and ended up with Neil McCann. There is,
the St Mary's faithful can confirm, a big difference between the gifted
Spaniard and the niggly Scot, who appears ill-suited to the pace and physical
element of Premiership football.

Left winger McCann's entire season amounts to two shots on target and seven
crosses to a team-mate. He is yet to be involved in a Southampton goal, let
alone score one.

Nicknamed 'McCan't', he is the only specialist left-sided midfielder in the
Saints squad, but often absent from both the team and the substitutes.




7. Kleberson (Manchester United, ?.6 million)
The phrase 'World Cup winner' carries with it an expectancy, an indication
this is of one of the world's elite players. Kleberson's performances suggest
otherwise.

Admittedly, the Brazilian has suffered from being played out of position; the
right touchline appears alien territory to him, so why he has played right
midfield is a mystery to all but Sir Alex Ferguson.

Kleberson has offered more as a support striker and perhaps it is harsh to
judge him until he has a run of games in the centre of midfield. But among
Manchester United's masses of midfielders, he has been the most
undistinguished this season.




6. Silas (Wolverhampton Wanderers, ?.4 million)
Like Manchester City, Wolves merit a team award for failed buys. Whereas the
arrivals of Steffen Iversen and Oleg Luzhny invited scepticism from the
start, the over-hyped Silas appeared a more promising signing.

Pre-season, the noises emanating from Molineux were that Silas was a
combination of Luis Figo and Ryan Giggs, a wing wizard destined to wreak
havoc in the Premiership.

Then the season started. Silas began the first two games, which Wolves lost
5-1 and 4-0, and has hardly been seen since.

Those two thrashings set the tone for Wolves' season and Silas, like their
campaign, started with high hopes. Realism was more painful.





5. Mario Jardel (Bolton Wanderers, free)
Sam Allardyce has rightly earned a reputation as one of the shrewdest
managers in the transfer market, but it was inevitable one of his
high-profile acquisitions would not settle in East Lancashire.

Mario Jardel, noted for his prolific scoring record elsewhere and for his
paunch in Bolton, has been the antidote to Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha
and Ivan Campo.

Werder Bremen's Ailton and Real Madrid's Ronaldo are proof that a fuller
figure is no impediment to goalscoring.

Jardel's physique is proof he is not the player who terrorised Portuguese and
Turkish defences. So, too, is a record of no goals in seven Premiership
games. He went on the Atkins diet, he went to Ancona and he went back to
Brazil.





4. Lorenzo Amoruso (Blackburn Rovers, ?.5 million)
Having received more than ?2 million for selling David Dunn and Damien Duff,
Graeme Souness had the finances to buy almost any centre-back.

He settled on the impetuous Lorenzo Amoruso and only the three relegated
teams have conceded more goals than Blackburn.

Nicolas Anelka was the first to expose his lack of pace but the ease with
which the strapping Italian has been outmuscled has been equally costly. For
the second successive summer, Souness' shopping list should include a centre
back.




3. Helder Postiga (Tottenham Hotspur, ?.75 million)
From one of Europe's most feared forwards to a reserve in a struggling team,
2003-4 has been a disastrous season for Helder Postiga.

The young striker is a victim of the muddled thinking that pervades Tottenham
Hotspur now. Glenn Hoddle signed him for ?.75 million from Porto and was
sacked after six games.

Six months later, Spurs paid ? million for another striker in Defoe to
relegate Postiga to fourth choice.

In between, Postiga's tough baptism to English football encompassed a
solitary goal and a host of missed chances against Arsenal.




2. Roque Junior (Leeds United, loan deal)
Since Jonathan Woodgate's sale, Leeds have needed a rock in their defence.
Peter Reid supplied a Roque instead, and the Leeds rearguard have been rocky
ever since.

Not that the World Cup winner - that phrase again - is still at Elland Road;
the premature finish of the Brazilian's loan spell was one of Eddie Gray's
first acts in charge.

Before then, 'hapless' almost became Roque Junior's recognised prefix. Leeds'
three worst performances of a dismal season all involved him, shipping four
goals apiece to Leicester and Everton and six at Portsmouth in a match which
heralded the end of Reid's reign and proved Roque Junior's final game in a
terrible loan spell.

Indeed, it is hard to think of a less successful defender in Premiership
history than Roque Junior: Leeds conceded 20 goals in his five, pointless
games.




1. David Seaman (Manchester City, free transfer)
'Safe Hands' started out as a compliment. It ended up as a cruel taunt as a
great career came to an undignified end behind Manchester City's porous
defence.

But though City started the season well, their back four has never recovered
the confidence lost in Seaman's spell at Eastlands as mistake followed
mistake; against Blackburn, Fulham, Wolves, Lokeren, Chelsea and, most
poignantly of all, against Arsenal.

Seaman, of course, was given the option to stay at Arsenal. Arsene Wenger
offered him a job as goalkeeping coach but when other managers were signing
Nigel Martyn, Maik Taylor or Tim Howard in goal, Keegan turned to a player
who let him down in his England days.

Though Peter Schmeichel managed to bow out near his best in a City shirt,
signing a second veteran keeper was an act of nostalgia.

Only two men ignored the evidence that Seaman's prime was a fading memory:
Keegan and Seaman himself.

Eventually, a diplomatic injury ended Seaman's Manchester City career. Had
David James not arrived in January, they could have gone down.  
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