The ten most pointless signings in the Premier League.
10. Emiliano Viviano – Arsenal, 2013-
The Italian stopper was on loan with Serie A giants Fiorentina last season, helping them with their mission to qualify for the Champions League (they failed), but this year he has found himself as an afterthought of manager Arsene Wenger in north London.
Signed on loan over the summer, he was meant to put pressure on Wojciech Szcz?sny and eventually take the number one spot after the Pole’s shaky performances last term led to question marks over his future.
But sadly, he’s not made a single appearance for the Gunner, and doesn’t look as though he will before he returns home in May.
9. Demba Ba – Chelsea, 2012-
When Ba signed up with the Stamford Bridge outfit he became the first Senegalese player to join them.
Sadly, that seems to be just about the only individual award he will win in west London as he continues to wile away his career in the reserves longing for the days when he was actually considered as a genuine goal threat.
8. Richard Wright – Manchester City, 2012-
The former England international was at one point considered to be the bright future of English goalkeeping and was tipped to take over from David Seaman in between the sticks.
Injuries and bad decisions robbed him of that accolade, though, and in 2012 – two years after his final appearance on a football pitch he was signed by Man City to be their third choice ‘keeper. Why not just hand the spot to a youngster?
7. Tomas Brolin – Leeds United, 1995-97, Crystal Palace, 1998
The Swede had never been prolific, and in all truth only had one decent goal of note under his best from the 1994 World Cup, but that didn’t stop a talented Leeds side from bringing him on board to score four goals in 20 games over two years.
He once decided to play badly in a game against Liverpool to prove a point to Howard Wilkinson and was promptly dropped for the remainder of the season bar one game.
Joined Palace for an even more pointless spell in 1998 before retiring.
6. Andrea Silenzi – Nottingham Forest, 1995-97
Silenzi was the first Italian player to ply his trade in the Premier League, but that’s about as impressive as it gets and the erratic marksman didn’t last long in the UK at all.
Signed for £1.8m, he managed a whopping ten games and no goals in his first season before making two anonymous appearances the next season. Vicenza saved him from his East Midlands nightmare on a loan deal.
5. Marco Boogers – West Ham United, 1995-98
Boogers (haha, Boogers) was signed by ‘Arry Redknapp back in the mid ’90s after the manager spotted him on a video. He was sent off in his second appearance against Manchester United for a horror challenge on Gary Neville, which led to claims that he had only been hired to cripple the young defender.
He made two more appearances before leaving on loan and with no goals to his name.
4. David Unsworth – Aston Villa, 1998
The former England international proved that some people’s geographical knowledge actually is THAT bad.
Upon leaving West Ham in 1998 he penned a £3m deal with Birmingham based Aston Villa, only to leave them 24 hours later to join Everton for the same fee after his wife believed that Birmingham was near her family home in Bolton. Hearing that it was the pair demanded a move and he still holds the record for being the shortest serving Villa player in history.
3. Massimo Taibi – Manchester United, 1999-2000
The ‘Blind Venetian’ stopper was signed as one of the potential replacements for Peter Schmeichel, but in typical fashion he was one of the poorer choices for the job.
Cursed with some seriously error prone behaviour he was quickly ushered out of the club at the end of the season back to Italy and he will forever go down as an almighty brain fart on behalf of Sir Alex Ferguson.
2. Romelu Lukaku – Chelsea, 2011 –
The Belgian has so far made only ten appearances for the Blues in the Premier League and has played his best football elsewhere. He has proved that he is a potent goal threat in the English top flight, yet the Blues appear to have spent £17m on a name and a name only.
Rumour has it that he’ll be off at the end of the season and it will be to their detriment.
1. Kim Kallstrom – Arsenal, 2014-
In Normal circumstances the Swede would probably be a very good signing, as he has bags of European experience and over a century of caps for his country.
However, he was signed as backup for an injured player, only…he’s injured himself. And it’s not just a minor injury, he’s broken his back! Not expected to return for another month, he sustained the injury whilst playing beach football in Russia. Yep.