Most disappointing signing ever, when you expected so much more?

[ThaiFox]

On 07/05/2019 at 09:44, Swan Lesta said:

Beckford

Adi Akyinbadbuyee

Ghezzal

Dennis Wise

Nacho

Slimani

Mills

Nils Eric Johansson

Bruma

 

 

Disappointment but also expected so much more for different reasons, sometimes conduct, some performance and some just dismay at the signing itself!

Agree with nearly all of those, plus I'd add Roger Davis and Musa.

 

Ghezzal is a little unfair because he is compared with Mahrez (being a winger and Algerian) and at times he has shown glimpses of talent, plus he seems to care.

 

For me, Dennis Wise must go down as our worst ever signing though. Not for skill reasons, but for his attitude, disgusting behaviour and his subsequent actions against the club.

 

Iheanacho is just a poor player, with a terrible attitude, and currently our scapegoat. I'm sure he'll be quickly forgotten once he leaves, but Dennis Wise will always be remembered.

[AKCJ]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've been saying this all season and I really do believe it. It's probably the most unpopular football opinion you can hold on here but I really don't think he's anywhere near as shit as his "highlight" reel of shockers shows. 

 

I think it's possible he won't ever have the right personality, I do worry that he never quite seems to have the stubborn self belief and absolute fire to fight and prove himself. He looks like he's given up, either through destroyed confidence or a complete lack of willingness to graft. 

 

But its important people remember that Vardy had to be convinced to not jack it in. The same people booing Nacho now are probably the same people that nearly hounded Vardy out the club. 

 

He clearly is technically proficient. He's not Riyad but he's also not appalling. You only have to look at his footage from Man City or his early games here to see all sorts of bright signs. Composed, accurate, early finishing. Great footwork to beat people, clever through passes, lob passes and flicks. There was a moment early this season I think where he skipped through two defenders passing the ball between his feet with a shimmy that was one of the best moves I've seen this year. 

 

But people either forget it or don't want to see it, they just remember his increasingly growing list of absolute point blank howlers like Monday's miss. I do get that, they are awful and embarrassing. 

 

But I kinda get it. I'm obviously not a top level pro sportsman but I do have a wildly inconsistent brain. I'm prone to enormous swings in confidence and anxiety that turn my ability to do everything from football to maths to basic speech from the sublime to the borderline disabled from day to day. 

 

The brain is hugely complex and a drop in confidence, especially a significant plummet, can turn your legs in to absolute jelly or lead, your brain in to complete foggy mush. Maybe Nacho lacks the mental fortitude to actually fight those things and maybe he'll never succeed under the pressure of the Prem. 

 

But equally, maybe he's a very, very young player - someone we forget just how young he is - who's gone from the best club in the country to a struggling team with an unsuitable manager to a fanbase that's turned hideously, quite frankly disgustingly on him as a scapegoat and it's absolutely struck him. 

 

I'm desperately keen to see what Rodgers can do with a full summer to work with him, I've never wanted us to turn around the fortunes of a player so much. Make no mistake, he MUST be willing to work his arse off to put a shift in but I do believe there's a player there. 

 

Maybe not a 25m, 20 goal a season one but certainly one good enough for this division when you consider the Shane Longs, Chris Woods, Ashley Barnes etc. I mean if Ashley Barnes can score double figures for Burnley, Nacho could do it with Harvey, Madders and Youri teeing him up. 

Fans on here will be quick to get shot of Iheanacho but will want to replace him with his carbon copy (Daniel Sturridge) who is essentially just as talented but is a much more confident footballer.

 

I still believe in Iheanacho and while I wouldn't be gutted if he moved on, I do genuinely think he could be a good player for us.

[Analysethis]

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

I've been saying this all season and I really do believe it. It's probably the most unpopular football opinion you can hold on here but I really don't think he's anywhere near as shit as his "highlight" reel of shockers shows. 

 

I think it's possible he won't ever have the right personality, I do worry that he never quite seems to have the stubborn self belief and absolute fire to fight and prove himself. He looks like he's given up, either through destroyed confidence or a complete lack of willingness to graft. 

 

But its important people remember that Vardy had to be convinced to not jack it in. The same people booing Nacho now are probably the same people that nearly hounded Vardy out the club. 

 

He clearly is technically proficient. He's not Riyad but he's also not appalling. You only have to look at his footage from Man City or his early games here to see all sorts of bright signs. Composed, accurate, early finishing. Great footwork to beat people, clever through passes, lob passes and flicks. There was a moment early this season I think where he skipped through two defenders passing the ball between his feet with a shimmy that was one of the best moves I've seen this year. 

 

But people either forget it or don't want to see it, they just remember his increasingly growing list of absolute point blank howlers like Monday's miss. I do get that, they are awful and embarrassing. 

 

But I kinda get it. I'm obviously not a top level pro sportsman but I do have a wildly inconsistent brain. I'm prone to enormous swings in confidence and anxiety that turn my ability to do everything from football to maths to basic speech from the sublime to the borderline disabled from day to day. 

 

The brain is hugely complex and a drop in confidence, especially a significant plummet, can turn your legs in to absolute jelly or lead, your brain in to complete foggy mush. Maybe Nacho lacks the mental fortitude to actually fight those things and maybe he'll never succeed under the pressure of the Prem. 

 

But equally, maybe he's a very, very young player - someone we forget just how young he is - who's gone from the best club in the country to a struggling team with an unsuitable manager to a fanbase that's turned hideously, quite frankly disgustingly on him as a scapegoat and it's absolutely struck him. 

 

I'm desperately keen to see what Rodgers can do with a full summer to work with him, I've never wanted us to turn around the fortunes of a player so much. Make no mistake, he MUST be willing to work his arse off to put a shift in but I do believe there's a player there. 

 

Maybe not a 25m, 20 goal a season one but certainly one good enough for this division when you consider the Shane Longs, Chris Woods, Ashley Barnes etc. I mean if Ashley Barnes can score double figures for Burnley, Nacho could do it with Harvey, Madders and Youri teeing him up. 

The biggest obstacle or barrier that Iheanacho and his career here are now facing is the rot looks like it's set in. He's shown mainly last season in the cups and then in pre-season where he looked very good that he's a good finisher, natural almost. But as this season has worn on, the confidence has completely evaporated. His contribution in terms of team play has deteriorated as well, he chipped in with a number of assists last season and in the first half of this season but he just isn't either being used or when he is he's less involved. It is confidence, he has the demeanour as if he doesn't care and maybe he isn't quite as bothered about football and his application might drop but there's a player in there. Rodgers is an exceptional man manager but for him to get the best out of Iheanacho he has got to make him feel involved and I just don't see it happening. Vardy if he remains injury free will just play and play and you can't keep a player of Iheanacho's age happy without playing. He can blow smoke up the likes of Morgan's or Fuchs ring pieces on the sidelines knowing their experience has a huge part to play in the buy in of this era but with another striker likely to come in as well it'll take huge skill and tact from Rodgers to get Iheanacho anywhere near what's he's capable of.

 

Personally I think a loan move is needed for him, get Pellegrini to take him at West Ham who loves him or even a top Championship side, get him involved week in, week out again and bring in a back up striker in the interim.

 

He's certainly got the ability in there and is no Akinibiyi or Jeff Schlupp type player.

[Alf Bentley]

Disappointing in a different way.............Aleksandar Tunchev

Disappointing because he was so good and could have been such a key player if he'd not got injured.

 

Signed at the start of our L1 season, he looked so much better than any other player at that level - and probably too good for the Championship, too.

How the hell we got him in L1, I don't know, as he'd been captain of Bulgarian champions CSKA Sofia & a regular full international. CSKA were in the shit financially, but how come no higher club came in for him?

And he had no history of being injury-prone, as I understand it......but did once he'd been here for half a season.

 

Just checked his Wiki page and he's still only 37 now. Makes me wonder what might have happened if he hadn't got injured. Would we have got PL promotion sooner? A sliding doors moment, his injury....

 

 

[worthosoriginals]

3 hours ago, PaulW said:

Criticism is not hate!  

certainly isn't love and support.

during our chant,.....

'through the good times and the bad, we will always support the lads'..... you take no part of? 

[Walshy5]

Beckford, Matt Mills. Immediately spring to mind. Also Garath Williams. Forest fans were gutted he was leaving and kept telling us we'd got a steal. Never trusted a Forest fan since. ?

[murphy]

4 hours ago, worthosoriginals said:

certainly isn't love and support.

during our chant,.....

'through the good times and the bad, we will always support the lads'..... you take no part of? 

Booing our own players is shameful and we should all support the team from one to eleven at the ground.   Outside of that, we have every right to be critical.  Not abusive, but critical.

 

If we have a player serving up rubbish consistently, he needs to be accountable.  After a period of time, he needs to know it is not acceptable.  Nobody should be allowed to perpetually under perform and be comfortable about it.

  

Without criticism you just have blind faith and shoulder shrugging just to appear to be a nice guy to some strangers on the internet.

[PaulW]

5 hours ago, worthosoriginals said:

certainly isn't love and support.

during our chant,.....

'through the good times and the bad, we will always support the lads'..... you take no part of? 

What are you talking about!?

[Dan LCFC]

A very good post that @Finnegan and lots of fair points about him. Can see what you mean. My only gripe is you're remembering a bit more of the technical ability I am. I can't really remember him beating his man. I only seem to remember him getting the ball and looking lost.

 

You can see some quality in some of the goals he has scored though. I'll give him that. The two at Peterborough were excellent finishes.

[inckley fox]

If the key word is 'disappointing', I wouldn't treat it the same way as 'rubbish'. I had no real expectations of Taylor as a team-builder, so while I was disappointed to waste good money on Akinbiyi, Benjamin etc. I wasn't nearly as shocked as when a good recruiter of players like O'Neill signed a dud. The most disappointing signings of Taylor's were those who, regardless of the fact that an incompetent was signing them, I'd previously rated. Wise is the most obvious.

 

Others come into that category: Guys signed by managers with a mixed record in the market, but who'd done better elsewhere. Howey, Dabizas, Keown and Dublin were all, under Adams, players who we thought could have been key players, but never came close. Waghorn's second coming under Sousa was a huge let-down, because I honestly thought he'd do well in the EPL. Campbell under Allen. Kirkland, Beckford, Kamara under Sven or even, costlier still, Matt Mills. Wayne Clarke, Ricky Hill, Allan Evans under Pleat. Iheanacho, Silva, Iborra under Shakespeare. The list goes on.

 

They weren't our worst ever players. They weren't uncharacteristic flops signed by otherwise dependable bosses. They weren't even necessarily the most expensive players. They were players we expected to play key roles, but ended up just sort of getting in the way.

 

But the most disappointing signings for me were the ones brought in by recruiters with, from our perspectives, the midas touch. Both Gunnlaugsson and Fenton were a class above the players listed previously, but for O'Neill to spend decent money on players who failed to make the grade was genuinely shocking. He signed so many unlikely heroes that I couldn't believed he'd invested in guys who fell so far short. 

 

Likewise, there was a terrible moment when it sunk in for me that Ahmed Musa was dreadful after all, would never come good, and maybe the Steve Walsh seal of approval didn't mean all that much without Pearson to run the rule over someone first. As for Slimani, I knew NP had opted against pursuing him previously, so I was already asking myself 'why didn't we sign him under Nige if he's so fantastic?' His abject failure was just an abject failure, rather than a soul-shattering disappointment.

 

I'll lump for Musa. Expensive, awful, a bottomless pit of disappointment, and yet recruited by the best scout in the business.

[danny2997]

People were the same with Kramaric when he was here, but now are claiming we should never have let him leave. Iheanacho is clearly not useless as he has proved his ability at man city and small spells here, he just needs the right manager (hopefully brendan) to get the best out of him. 

[Guy]

In the present team then Iheanacho by a country mile : but it was interesting that he was used in a potentially important way on Monday by Rodgers - albeit he fluffed his lines! Maybe it was as a deliberate acid test to test his worth for the sake of the possible close season departees list though.....

Back tracking a wee bit : then Slimani is another glaringly obvious one! Also - although dogged by misfortune as regards the transfer FIFA deadline debacle then Adrien "we signed him in September" Silva was another who flattered to deceive throughout his time with us (although Puel hardly got the best out of him of course by barely playing him!) - but on the plus side at least we gained Tielemans in January when we exchanged with Monaco - a move which seems to have suited both parties.

I haven't read any other people's posts previously up to this so I'm sorry if I'm echoing already expressed sentiments here : but I think that we should never have let Kramaric go when we did - although he was essentially Pearson's player who was signed in the great escape season - and one who Ranieri seemingly couldn't fit into that 'oh so well oiled' magical 2015-16 machine a few months later! I basically can't be bothered to go back much further but Gareth Williams (Craig Levein era) was a major flop in 2004-05 and Arnar Gunnlaughsson (in the late O'Neill era in 1999) was another relative 'flop' who was signed for relatively big money at the time....even though he lasted until sometime during the duration of the chequered  Peter Taylor....which tidies this thread up by mentioning Ade Akin(bad buy) !! 

 

Edited 9 May 2019 by Guy

[RonnieTodger]

20 hours ago, worthosoriginals said:

certainly isn't love and support.

during our chant,.....

'through the good times and the bad, we will always support the lads'..... you take no part of? 

 

 

"Through the good times and the bad, we'll always back the lads"

 

REPLACING NUMBER 10 JAMES MADDISON, IS NUMBER 8 KELECHI IHEANACHO

 

"BOOOOOOOOO"

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, RonnieTodger said:

 

 

"Through the good times and the bad, we'll always back the lads"

 

REPLACING NUMBER 10 JAMES MADDISON, IS NUMBER 8 KELECHI IHEANACHO

 

"BOOOOOOOOO"

 

PROOOOUUUUUD OF OUR CIIITEEEEEE

 

 

 

 

[worthosoriginals]

1 hour ago, RonnieTodger said:

 

 

"Through the good times and the bad, we'll always back the lads"

 

REPLACING NUMBER 10 JAMES MADDISON, IS NUMBER 8 KELECHI IHEANACHO

 

"BOOOOOOOOO"

ooh look his confidence is shredded to pieces, he's playing even worse now. fcking

boooooooooh!!!!!!!

that will teach him a major lesson.

[LCCFox96]

Matt Mills for me. At the time a club record transfer, thought we'd secured a great leader and strong central defender to build the team around. Remember when Reading beat us at home the season before he looked excellent in defence and scored a good header too.

[Leicester_Loyal]

All the ones I was thinking of have been said already. Although I'd like to mention Ricardo, he didn't cost us anything but my memory of him was being a world class keeper at the Euros, then he played for us and he was absolutely awful.

[fleckneymike]

Darren Eadie. 

[J.Lisemore]

On 08/05/2019 at 11:42, Alf Bentley said:

Disappointing in a different way.............Aleksandar Tunchev

Disappointing because he was so good and could have been such a key player if he'd not got injured.

 

Signed at the start of our L1 season, he looked so much better than any other player at that level - and probably too good for the Championship, too.

How the hell we got him in L1, I don't know, as he'd been captain of Bulgarian champions CSKA Sofia & a regular full international. CSKA were in the shit financially, but how come no higher club came in for him?

And he had no history of being injury-prone, as I understand it......but did once he'd been here for half a season.

 

Just checked his Wiki page and he's still only 37 now. Makes me wonder what might have happened if he hadn't got injured. Would we have got PL promotion sooner? A sliding doors moment, his injury....

 

 

I think there was a story that came out at the time where he admitted he thought we were in Division 1 rather than League 1  agree on Tunchev though, first time in a long time where it looked a major coup for us. Cool and classy player before his injury nightmares, far too good at League One level. 

[Paninistickers]

Some left field names here, but I was super excited at signing

 

Wayne Clarke

David Connolly

Ricky Scimeca

Jimmy Quinn

 

All were hugely underwhelming

[49er]

Tommy English. Looked a really good young player for Cov in the first division scoring plenty of goals. Gordon Milne managed him and whilst he swapped fan’s favourite Jimmy Melrose for English we all thought the latter would score a hatful if goals in the second division. He failed miserably, eventually playing left midfield

[Rain King]

A loan signing but Harry Kane. He wasn't particularly well sought after at that time but I'd watched him a few times for Millwall and really thought he looked great. 

 

After a few games for us was convinced he was destined for League One at best.

 

 

Edited 9 May 2019 by pds

[don_danbury]

quite funny how sven's cheaper or less cared about singings ended up being pivotal for promotion. kasper/nugent/konchesky. most of the expensive ones ended up being poor. shame he could never get yakubu though, he was class in the champ.

[49er]

Roger Davies. Bought by McLintock to score the goals that would keep us up. Signed from Bruges , which was quite something as only the better players moved to European clubs. Had a ‘super sub’ reputation at Derby.