Worst Rovers signing ever?

[TheRoversReturn]

There are plenty of awful players in in our recent past but to be the worst I think you have to hit all three criteria of;

- Transfer fee. We've had plenty of terrible freebies, but at least we didn't also spunk away a big part of our transfer budget at the same time.

- Performance on the pitch relative to expectations. Again, lots of awful players, but it's worse when they were signed to be a star player than if signed to be, say, a backup left back to only play now and then.

- Consequences. Did the signing badly affect the club that season? Or even after that?

Therefore, step forward by far the biggest turd in the steaming pile of shit of Rovers signings of the last four decades or so----

Kevin Davies.

No contest. Broke our transfer record fee AND that included a knockdown fee for Beattie, scored a grand total of one league goal for us and, worse than that, had a massive part in our relegation which took us a few years to recover from and meant that Uncle Jack passed away when we were not in the top flight. To rub salt in the wounds, he went onto be a Bolton legend and, eventually, played for England.

I salute you, Kevin Davies. You are the winner of the Worst Signing in the History of BRFC.  

[RoversClitheroe]

Tony Mowbray.

[47er]

Delfuenzo.

[Miller11]

9 hours ago, TheRoversReturn said:

There are plenty of awful players in in our recent past but to be the worst I think you have to hit all three criteria of;

- Transfer fee. We've had plenty of terrible freebies, but at least we didn't also spunk away a big part of our transfer budget at the same time.

- Performance on the pitch relative to expectations. Again, lots of awful players, but it's worse when they were signed to be a star player than if signed to be, say, a backup left back to only play now and then.

- Consequences. Did the signing badly affect the club that season? Or even after that?

Therefore, step forward by far the biggest turd in the steaming pile of shit of Rovers signings of the last four decades or so----

Kevin Davies.

No contest. Broke our transfer record fee AND that included a knockdown fee for Beattie, scored a grand total of one league goal for us and, worse than that, had a massive part in our relegation which took us a few years to recover from and meant that Uncle Jack passed away when we were not in the top flight. To rub salt in the wounds, he went onto be a Bolton legend and, eventually, played for England.

I salute you, Kevin Davies. You are the winner of the Worst Signing in the History of BRFC.  

Can’t argue with that. I’d put £5.3 million Christian Dailly at number 2 as someone who ticks all the same boxes.

[Roverinbelfast]

Miles Anderson will always be my number 1 in this topic. It boils my blood that he got a contact and a wage from our club. Hateful. After that in no particular order. Bradley orr. Leon best, Danny Murphy, etithu, the Portuguese contingent & that French lad that big sam signed goulon or something, he was absolutely garbage 

[Admiral Nelsen]

9 hours ago, TheRoversReturn said:

Kevin Davies.

No contest. Broke our transfer record fee AND that included a knockdown fee for Beattie, scored a grand total of one league goal for us and, worse than that, had a massive part in our relegation which took us a few years to recover from and meant that Uncle Jack passed away when we were not in the top flight. To rub salt in the wounds, he went onto be a Bolton legend and, eventually, played for England.

I salute you, Kevin Davies. You are the winner of the Worst Signing in the History of BRFC.  

 

Yes, no contest really. If you take transfer fee inflation into account, we paid an eye watering sum for Kevin Davies, and he signed a 7 year contract! 

Given away for nowt twelve months later, so he could play with the Rovers fan we also gave away for (next to) nowt, who himself played for England, was the top English scorer in the league at one point, and who himself went for fees of over £10million over the course of his career. This is before considering that playing Beattie in front of Davies could have easily been enough to see us safe that season, even if that's a bit of a speculator. 

 

 Easily the worst use of money, even if we have better reasons to dislike some of the turkeys which came along later. 

[riverholmes]

It's hard to compare them, especially, not knowing the full story behind the deals, but some Souness signings stick out for me.

Signing Hakan Sukur, the legendary Turkish forward, and then letting him go after no time due to, allegedly, falling out, strikes me as a terrible signing. Clearly, Souness could not manage outspoken players and to sign someone as 'big' and raise and then dash hopes of fans of seeing a genuine international star play seems like a huge failure. (Caveat, that I don't know the full story as to why Sukur left.)

I think if terrible research and due diligence is a factor then Ciccio Grabbi must be up there. I was shocked to discover that since a young age, the guy suffered from Ledderhose disease, causing the formation of hard lumps on the sole of the foot that affects mobility. Je has surgery at a young age and had some good seasons in Serie C and B, having started out as a Juve youngster. However, to my mind, you don't spend £6/7 million in 2001, on a lower league forward with that kind of history. Moreover, we appear to have overlooked his strike partner at Ternana, Miccoli, who moved to Juve the following summer and turned into a top striker.

Edit: Remembered that Sukur broke his leg in training but came back to score two really good goals against, I think, Fulham. Souness talked of wanting to give him a contract and then, when the time came, Rovers claimed they couldn't afford him. Sukur, meanwhile, was reported in British press to have said that he had problems with Souness.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by riverholmes

[JacknOry]

4 hours ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

Yes, no contest really. If you take transfer fee inflation into account, we paid an eye watering sum for Kevin Davies, and he signed a 7 year contract! 

Given away for nowt twelve months later, so he could play with the Rovers fan we also gave away for (next to) nowt, who himself played for England, was the top English scorer in the league at one point, and who himself went for fees of over £10million over the course of his career. This is before considering that playing Beattie in front of Davies could have easily been enough to see us safe that season, even if that's a bit of a speculator. 

 

 Easily the worst use of money, even if we have better reasons to dislike some of the turkeys which came along later. 

Is that true we gave him a 7-year contract and then gave him away for free a year later????

 

[Admiral Nelsen]

1 minute ago, JacknOry said:

Is that true we gave him a 7-year contract and then gave him away for free a year later????

 

 

The 7 year contract is definitely true - the free transfer might be a false memory, but I think it was. It definitely was at most a tiny fraction of what we paid, but it might've just been a straight swap with Ostenstad.

[simongarnerisgod]

3 hours ago, riverholmes said:

It's hard to compare them, especially, not knowing the full story behind the deals, but some Souness signings stick out for me.

Signing Hakan Sukur, the legendary Turkish forward, and then letting him go after no time due to, allegedly, falling out, strikes me as a terrible signing. Clearly, Souness could not manage outspoken players and to sign someone as 'big' and raise and then dash hopes of fans of seeing a genuine international star play seems like a huge failure. (Caveat, that I don't know the full story as to why Sukur left.)

I think if terrible research and due diligence is a factor then Ciccio Grabbi must be up there. I was shocked to discover that since a young age, the guy suffered from Ledderhose disease, causing the formation of hard lumps on the sole of the foot that affects mobility. Je has surgery at a young age and had some good seasons in Serie C and B, having started out as a Juve youngster. However, to my mind, you don't spend £6/7 million in 2001, on a lower league forward with that kind of history. Moreover, we appear to have overlooked his strike partner at Ternana, Miccoli, who moved to Juve the following summer and turned into a top striker.

Edit: Remembered that Sukur broke his leg in training but came back to score two really good goals against, I think, Fulham. Souness talked of wanting to give him a contract and then, when the time came, Rovers claimed they couldn't afford him. Sukur, meanwhile, was reported in British press to have said that he had problems with Souness.

 

 

i think the fall out between sukur and souness happened when souness took him off away at newcastle when he was having a really good game,happened at the time when souness was beginning to fall out with everybody and anybody

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

7 hours ago, riverholmes said:

It's hard to compare them, especially, not knowing the full story behind the deals, but some Souness signings stick out for me.

Signing Hakan Sukur, the legendary Turkish forward, and then letting him go after no time due to, allegedly, falling out, strikes me as a terrible signing. Clearly, Souness could not manage outspoken players and to sign someone as 'big' and raise and then dash hopes of fans of seeing a genuine international star play seems like a huge failure. (Caveat, that I don't know the full story as to why Sukur left.)

I think if terrible research and due diligence is a factor then Ciccio Grabbi must be up there. I was shocked to discover that since a young age, the guy suffered from Ledderhose disease, causing the formation of hard lumps on the sole of the foot that affects mobility. Je has surgery at a young age and had some good seasons in Serie C and B, having started out as a Juve youngster. However, to my mind, you don't spend £6/7 million in 2001, on a lower league forward with that kind of history. Moreover, we appear to have overlooked his strike partner at Ternana, Miccoli, who moved to Juve the following summer and turned into a top striker.

Edit: Remembered that Sukur broke his leg in training but came back to score two really good goals against, I think, Fulham. Souness talked of wanting to give him a contract and then, when the time came, Rovers claimed they couldn't afford him. Sukur, meanwhile, was reported in British press to have said that he had problems with Souness.

 

 

I remember the Fulham game, he gave a master class in how to play centre forward.

[Armchair supporter supremo]

Darren Peacock (and we didnt even pay a fee for him ha) he and daily must be our worst defensive players in the prem years

[Mattyblue]

Yep £7milllion and a 7 year deal.

This article from the time is an insight into the inexplicable mess the club got itself in in the late 90s...

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/1999/aug/17/newsstory.sport3

Edited June 6, 2021 by Mattyblue

[JacknOry]

Blimey, we need to stay away from the number 7!

[oneandycrawford]

On 18/08/2020 at 00:09, Exiled_Rover said:

We were in the Prem at the time - he was awful for Rovers. Fabulous L1 player though, I'm sure. 

Always thought the barracking of Andrews was well over-the-top. He never hid and always tried his best. Not his fault his manager over-promoted him. Compared to the likes of Murphy, Ferguson (could have been good for us with any effort!!), Best and the rest Andrews doesn't even come close!

[Roverinbelfast]

4 minutes ago, oneandycrawford said:

Always thought the barracking of Andrews was well over-the-top. He never hid and always tried his best. Not his fault his manager over-promoted him. Compared to the likes of Murphy, Ferguson (could have been good for us with any effort!!), Best and the rest Andrews doesn't even come close!

Likewise I always thought the barracking of Ferguson was OTT. Granted I didn't go to as many games back then. But I thought he was just starting to settle and look like a decent player when he got that horrible injury. Then he left shortly after he returned I think. 

[Mattyblue]

With Andrews, I suppose it was a time when the fans had high expectations and he was a lower league journeyman of the type we hadn’t really seen as a mainstay  (oh but we soon would!) of our side for years.

He’d be like the second coming with the Rovers-Twitterati now. ‘Look at the km covered’’, ‘he made 23 ball recoveries this month’. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Mattyblue

[Admiral Nelsen]

2 minutes ago, Roverinbelfast said:

Likewise I always thought the barracking of Ferguson was OTT. Granted I didn't go to as many games back then. But I thought he was just starting to settle and look like a decent player when he got that horrible injury. Then he left shortly after he returned I think. 

 

Was a very common opinion at the time, as I recall. The way he left probably seemed to change the opinion of many who otherwise would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

 

10 minutes ago, oneandycrawford said:

Always thought the barracking of Andrews was well over-the-top. He never hid and always tried his best. Not his fault his manager over-promoted him. Compared to the likes of Murphy, Ferguson (could have been good for us with any effort!!), Best and the rest Andrews doesn't even come close!

 

Agree. He was an average footballer, no worse than that. 

[matt83]

2 hours ago, oneandycrawford said:

Always thought the barracking of Andrews was well over-the-top. He never hid and always tried his best. Not his fault his manager over-promoted him. Compared to the likes of Murphy, Ferguson (could have been good for us with any effort!!), Best and the rest Andrews doesn't even come close!

He got peoples backs up a bit for saying after a Bolton game something like the atmosphere was poor considering it was the main rivalry. Great way to demonstrate knowledge of the club paying your wages and a little dig to boot. To me he represents many a top player north of the boarder simply not good enough in a proper league. 
 

sorry wrong quote. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by matt83

[LeftWinger]

On 05/06/2021 at 13:08, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

If you take transfer fee inflation into account, we paid an eye watering sum for Kevin Davies, and he signed a 7 year contract! 

 

I hadn't realised he had signed a 7 year contract (although that is backed up by the article below). Crazy.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/6152424.rovers-blackburn-break-club-record-sign-southampton-star-davies/

One bit from this article is who Southampton were lining up to replace him:

"Manager David Jones, however, is believed to have lined-up Crystal Palace's Matt Jansen as a £3.5 million replacement"

It's funny how things work out.

 

[BookaShade]

Purely for the disappointment after he failed to match up to those sweet as hell Youtube videos he was signed on the basis of:

 

Carlos Villanueva. 

[oneandycrawford]

On 06/06/2021 at 11:19, Mattyblue said:

With Andrews, I suppose it was a time when the fans had high expectations and he was a lower league journeyman of the type we hadn’t really seen as a mainstay  (oh but we soon would!) of our side for years.

He’d be like the second coming with the Rovers-Twitterati now. ‘Look at the km covered’’, ‘he made 23 ball recoveries this month’. 

I guess some of those fans had forgotten SuperAtko - a classic lower league journeyman miraculously turned into a Premiership winning midfielder by Kenny and Ray.

[AJW]

Kevin Davies takes some beating but a few other worth a mention

Barry Ferguson for crying back off to Scotland because basically he wasn’t as good as he Souness or us thought 

Matty Holmes , completely the wrong signing for a team that’s just won the league sent out all the wrong messages 

Danny Murphy , possibly the most disappointing signing of all time 

Bradley Orr , complete twat sorry for language but the word fits him perfectly 

 

[RoverCanada]

It's already been discussed, but I think the biggest thing to stress about those summer of 2012 signings is the opportunity cost.

That was our first year with parachute payments and our chance to steamroll the league with our wage bill alone. I know there's debate about this, but all other things equal, having parachute payments is a huge, huge advantage in the Championship.

And we certainly spent like it. It wasn't as if we tried to cut our cloth that year, we did go for it...

Yet we wasted that opportunity on the likes of Murphy, Etuhu, and Best (I sometimes wonder how Best would've done if he hadn't gotten injured that year... obviously a twat of a person, but he had some pedigree), all reportedly on £30k/week. You could easily have 7-8 solid Championship players for a similar outlay. We ended up almost relegated and lost £42m that summer, setting us on course for a snowballing financial disaster.

Rhodes was obviously the saving grace of that summer, and probably singlehandedly kept us from being relegated, but he should've been the icing on a promotion-challenging team's cake, not our safety valve.

[Mattyblue]

And had just the five managers in that one season.