Worst recent signing?

[FoxyPalace.com]

DAKA 100% offered bloody zero 

[Tommy Fresh]

1 minute ago, FoxyPalace.com said:

DAKA 100% offered bloody zero 

He's done more than Skipp and you can actually see why we signed Daka, I can't even imagine what reasoning we had for paying what we did for Skipp

[CarolinaFox]

6 hours ago, foxer said:

Has to be Skipp.

 

He's by no means the biggest flop (though if course, he has been a complete flop) but it was the fact 20m was the only money we had to spend and we went for a midfielder when we already had a load. All while being absolutely desperate in multiple other positions. 

 

Still blows my mind. 

I doubt Skipp really cost us what most people think. Sure the sticker price was in that ballpark, but Tottenham owed us for Maddison. Seems the most likely scenario is that the sale of Skipp offset the remaining debt on the Maddison deal and was left at sticker price to help Tottenham clear any PSR hurdles and make their books look as good as possible as he was an academy profit and any sale would be pure profit against PSR. Skipp is clearly a Cooper backed signing which is why we probably initiated going after him and Tottenham suggested that it cover the Maddison debt. If Skipp has such a long contract with us he actually becomes more of a value asset than some of the other players on this list with one or no years left. Not saying I think he’s the second coming of Kante, he isn’t. And not saying I feel confident in his ability. I don’t. But I think the narrative around his cost to the club needs a bit more perspective.

[Guest]

With some of these you could at least see the logic at the time and they've just turned out disastrously for whatever reason, whereas there is no hindsight required whatsoever for Skipp. There can't have been more than about five people on the planet who thought spending that amount of money on him was a good idea but unfortunately that number includes the people at our club with the ability to make it happen. 

[Nolucklcfc]

I’d go with Daka followed closely by Skipp and Soumare. 

[Stadt]

2 hours ago, ealingfox said:

Ward for £12.5m is worse than any of them.

Ward and Soumare have been the most harmful.

 

Skipp the most idiotic.

[Stadt]

6 minutes ago, Guest said:

With some of these you could at least see the logic at the time and they've just turned out disastrously for whatever reason, whereas there is no hindsight required whatsoever for Skipp. There can't have been more than about five people on the planet who thought spending that amount of money on him was a good idea but unfortunately that number includes the people at our club with the ability to make it happen. 

I would love to know our transfer process, well there probably isn’t. Just all ad hoc yes/no on Rudkin’s say so.

 

I bet the scouts and analysts do find some gems but then the latest bozo in the dugout wants their own toys (Skipp, Ayew, Reid) rather than trusting the people with a clue.

 

A director of football is literally there to stop this sort of thing happening but he seems to facilitate it instead.

[STEVIE B]

That list & fees paid is absolutely shocking & then there's the length of contracts too. It's like money wasn't an issue at all.

 

Reminds me of that Binman, Michael Carrol winning £10m on The Lottery & p*****g it all up the wall............We just did it on a grander scale. Incredible 

Edited 2 November 2025 by STEVIE B

[The boy Linacre]

In the end he is VERY crap, but I do also feel some little part of sympathy for Daka.

But there were spurts of something on occasion.....

7 goals in 20 Championship games last time out and

6 goals in 10 games in Europe

But now he just gets bullied and buffeted AND just does to ground under challenge as much as Ayew, and EVERY ref waves it off.

Skipp embodies a TRULY awful purchase and ability and application BUT he is the personification of the current ownership.  A truly sackable offence that NOBODY has owned up to or held accountable for.

[whoareyaaa]

Toss up between Kristensen, Skipp and Soumare.

[RoboFox]

Teflon Jon’s CV doesn’t make for great reading, does it?

[jimsmallman]

I don’t despise him as a human being as much as I do some on the list, but I’d be annoyed at Skipp if he was a free transfer. The worst £20m plus player in the history of football. 

[STEVIE B]

2 hours ago, Swarles Barkley said:

I voted Skipp but its Ward 100%. A competent goalkeeper that year and we clearly stay in the prem. 

That's on Rogers. He kept picking him, when everyone & their dog see he was a weak link. 

 

[RoboFox]

1 hour ago, STEVIE B said:

That's on Rogers. He kept picking him, when everyone & their dog see he was a weak link. 

 

“Two number ones”

 

These are the actual words used by Rodgers to describe Kasper Schmeichel and Danny Ward.

 

Imagine thinking the two are remotely comparable. 

[RedSoxUK]

This is a joke right? One choice?

 

I'm waiting for some **** in the scouting team (assuming we actually have one,) to come out slagging off everyone including managers up to Rodgers.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Stadt said:

I would love to know our transfer process, well there probably isn’t. Just all ad hoc yes/no on Rudkin’s say so.

 

I bet the scouts and analysts do find some gems but then the latest bozo in the dugout wants their own toys (Skipp, Ayew, Reid) rather than trusting the people with a clue.

 

A director of football is literally there to stop this sort of thing happening but he seems to facilitate it instead.

The closest thing we have to a coherent strategy is to just always do whatever requires the least thought or effort, so I assume that in most cases the deal basically arrives fully formed courtesy of an agent or because the manager knows someone who knows someone who owes someone a favour, then we add 25-50% to whatever the asking price/wage demands are to keep them sweet. Only if there's no such oven-ready deal on the table do we then actually get the recruitment team involved.

[The Doctor]

Skipp was the worst in terms of recruitment plan. Faes, Souttar, Kristensen, Okoli, even Vestegaard and Ayew, they represented us identifying a weakness and just... not really buying right to fill it. Daka and Soumare were the types of signing we should have been making, fees aside, identifying young players from european leagues and looking to bring them in, bad as they've been. Golding was a PSR fiddle to get Chelsea to take KDH. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

So ridiculous. I thought I’d never see worse recruitment than the Peter Taylor era, but this has got to be worse.

[Finn Claw II]

How much will we get back from that lot? £20m max?

 

awful

[Staffs Fox]

It’s all about context and for that reason it has to be Skipp. 
 

That summer we really didn’t have much to spend as we looked to reestablish ourselves back in the Prem. We still had Ndidi, Winks and Soumare as CM options but we decide to spend £20m on this guy when we were crying out for attacking reinforcements. The fact we went into the season with a 38 year old Vardy as our main option whilst this man warmed our bench is so bad.

The fact he’s still warming our bench in a terrible bottom house Championship team just compounds it

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, Staffs Fox said:

It’s all about context and for that reason it has to be Skipp. 
 

That summer we really didn’t have much to spend as we looked to reestablish ourselves back in the Prem. We still had Ndidi, Winks and Soumare as CM options but we decide to spend £20m on this guy when we were crying out for attacking reinforcements. The fact we went into the season with a 38 year old Vardy as our main option whilst this man warmed our bench is so bad.

The fact he’s still warming our bench in a terrible bottom house Championship team just compounds it

It was our record net spend! Beggars belief we were in the FFP mire signed who we did