Transfers That Haven't Quite Worked Out

[Dan+]

I'll not forget the arguments I had in the summer we sold Maguire. "You're just bitter you're losing him" because I pointed out a defender they sold for about a tenth of the price, who played alongside him at Leicester (Evans) had been better for us than he had.

I didn't think Maguire was rubbish but they genuinely thought they were getting a van Dijk.

Anyway there's been quite a few for us, our recruitment is highly spoken of but we've had some pretty bad ones as well. Boubakary Soumare who we signed last summer has been a real letdown. There were so many who'd watched him (supposedly) who thought we'd pulled a real coup. He looks lost and I'm a little baffled at quite how off it he's looked.

[Dan+]

8 hours ago, The Palace Fan said:

Max Meyer is the big one for us. He was on huge wages for a club our size given he had previously been linked with some top clubs. 50% of fans will tell you he looked good in the ten minute cameo's at first but eventually Roy got to suck all the confidence, hope and optimism out his body and he has never recovered. The other 50% of fans will tell you he never fit in and was clearly overrated which is why he's gone on to achieve nothing since.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Whilst he has never looked good enough for a top six club, I imagine had he joined a side that liked to keep possession with a Manager that actually wanted to help him he probably would have had a better shot at being successful. It pains may to say it, but Graham Potter and Brighton would possibly have been his best fit.

The other big name that flopped for us was Emmanuel Adebayor. I laughed when I read he said that he never wanted to join us because the feeling was so mutual. Sure, he could hold the ball up in the corner and defenders had to mark him but we had Aaron Wilbraham doing that two years before on one hundredth of the weekly wage. A tragic waste of a squad place.

Without looking I bet Meyer plays in Turkey.

[Danny]

A bit of a strange one but I'd say Emiliano Marcondes.

Yes he scored the final goal during the Play-Off final to secure us promotion and his name in our history books forever...but when he was signed the expectation was that he was going to be a 20+ goal striker/midfielder as he seemed to be in Denmark. But he never really settled in, never really got to play in his favoured position and then when here for an extended period of time never really was able to prove himself as the player we thought we were buying.

Interestingly he's only made 19 appearances for Bournemouth this season, not sure if down to injury or form, but I think some Bournemouth fans were expecting a much better player than they got due to his play off final heroics.

I'll happily take how it worked out in the end, but he definitely appeared to be someone who would go on to be a Benrahma, Watkins, Maupay or Toney. In the end he never became good enough for us to re-sign when we went up.

[Spike]

35 minutes ago, Dan said:

Without looking I bet Meyer plays in Turkey.

I checked… he plays in Denmark…on loan from a Turkish club

[Dan+]

7 minutes ago, Spike said:

I checked… he plays in Denmark…on loan from a Turkish club

That's probably an even more extreme version of the point I was getting at. I looked it up afterwards and laughed. I can't believe he's only 26.

[LFCMike]

I think the only one for us in recent years would be Keita because of the fee. And that's not to say he's been bad or isn't worth his place in the squad. I just think the build up he had before he got here we all thought we were getting a mainstay in the midfield. He's still a very good player and worth having around though.

[RandoEFC+]

I won't list all of ours but I think I can try to narrow it down to a top five.

Andre Gomes - Awesome on loan, massive letdown since he was signed permanently, partially but not entirely down to his horror injury a few years ago, and I think even that might potentially be generous but we can't know unless we see a parallel timeline where it never happened. The worst thing about Gomes is that he's reportedly pulling in 110k a week making him one of our highest earners.

Salomon Rondon - Jokes aside, I love the lad's attitude and work ethic, he's just absolutely miserably ill-equipped for the Premier League, even though he was signed for a free.

Fabian Delph - Thought we were getting the new Gareth Barry when we signed him from Manchester City but his injury record is an absolute piss-take and his performances before and after that petty argument he got into with one of our fans on Instagram haven't justified his Billy Big Bollocks attitude that's hung over him since.

Gylfi Sigurdsson - Was actually decent for us but I don't think I have to describe why he's included here. Only Everton could have such an outcome happen to the club's record signing.

Jean-Phillipe Gbamin - Signed for £25m from Mainz as a highly-rated defensive midfielder. Played a game and a half before he did his knee ligaments and put himself out for the season, then suffered a freak thigh muscle injury taking a shot in training that put him out for a further year. Again, "only Everton" springs to mind.

Cenk Tosun - Alright, I couldn't quite narrow it down to five. The depressing part is all of these players are still technically under contract at the club. The lad signed for Everton over four years ago for a £20m+ fee, he's scored 9 goals in 50 appearances, been loaned out twice and still hasn't agreed a deal to leave the club permanently. I remember saying at the time, because he was a Steve Walsh-era signing, that Walsh and Koeman had done damage to the club that would last for years to come, and, well, here we are with players like Tosun that we still can't offload. These things have consequences.

[Tar-Mairon]

For the league overall, probably Diego Forlan. Brilliant, brilliant player. World-class. It was just a combination of rare Ferguson mismanagement, Forlan's struggle to settle and other strikers that it just didn't go right and didn't happen for him there. 

For us, I can't see further than Ndombele at the moment. Record signing and has looked unfit, disinterested and unmotivated most of the time.

 

[Tommy]

On 27/04/2022 at 05:59, Spike said:

‘Tommy’ when he went from Dortmund to Dusseldorf. A bit of a step down and we never needed him.

I was born and raised in Düsseldorf. I never left. I was just misguided for some time. 

[Spike]

10 minutes ago, Tommy said:

I was born and raised in Düsseldorf. I never left. I was just misguided for some time. 

While I hate the phrase ‘born and raised’ it is much better than saying ‘born and bred’. 

‘Born and raised’ sounds like a farmer talking about a calf his cow just dropped onto the ground.

[Tommy]

5 minutes ago, Spike said:

While I hate the phrase ‘born and raised’ it is much better than saying ‘born and bred’. 

‘Born and raised’ sounds like a farmer talking about a calf his cow just dropped onto the ground.

I was sired, hired and fired in Düsseldorf. 

[OrangeKhrush]

Siem De Jong,  the fabled Ajax star that nobody ever saw in a Newcastle uniform.

 

Alfonso Alves,  joined Middleborough for a then insane 12m and scored 10 goals across 2 seasons

[Dr. Gonzo]

8 hours ago, LFCMike said:

I think the only one for us in recent years would be Keita because of the fee. And that's not to say he's been bad or isn't worth his place in the squad. I just think the build up he had before he got here we all thought we were getting a mainstay in the midfield. He's still a very good player and worth having around though.

Karius maybe. Tipped to be great, but that CL final basically ended his career at the very top. Cheap signing though compared to a lot of the other names listed in this thread.

[Dan+]

6 hours ago, Tar-Mairon said:

For the league overall, probably Diego Forlan. Brilliant, brilliant player. World-class. It was just a combination of rare Ferguson mismanagement, Forlan's struggle to settle and other strikers that it just didn't go right and didn't happen for him there. 

For us, I can't see further than Ndombele at the moment. Record signing and has looked unfit, disinterested and unmotivated most of the time.

The Soumare signing has reminded me a lot of Ndombele.

[SchalkeUK]

Max was in school with Mesut and after Roy's disgusting treament he went to be with his old mate.  To try and get some confidence back he is trying to get back to form in Denmark, but once again he spends more time on the bench than on the field. C'est la vie!

[Dr. Gonzo]

22 hours ago, SchalkeUK said:

Max was in school with Mesut and after Roy's disgusting treament he went to be with his old mate.  To try and get some confidence back he is trying to get back to form in Denmark, but once again he spends more time on the bench than on the field. C'est la vie!

Weird how that keeps happening to him. Almost like he keeps having to find his level and his level keeps being lower than he thinks it is.

[SchalkeUK]

I've had lots of very clever young guys who get knocked back and then fail vital exams - usually due to bad leadership - either from Teachers or Parents.  It takes a long time to correct that and similar situation at work - including footy - can do the same to a guy's confidence level - he starts to believe that he can't do things which earlier came almost naturally to him.  You don't captain a national team in Brazil in the final and then sit on the bench for three seasons without losing your 'mojo'.  Sadly, football is full of similar situations - Gaza probably being the worst.  I still hope that young Max can get his back!