Source: Team_Talk
TEAMtalk Famous Five: Bad buys
No matter who you support and how good your manager is, you'll have seen a fair few shocking signings made by your club down the years.[LNB]Every manager gets it wrong from time to time and it would be simple to list five bad buys from this season, never mind since the start of the Premier League in 1992.[LNB]So to say it was difficult picking five from the last 17 years is an understatement. Newcastle have provided us with the likes of Jean-Alain Boumsong, Titus Bramble and Albert Luque, Fulham spent a mind-blowing £11.5million on Steve Marlet, and who can forget 'ten bellies' Tomas Brolin at Leeds.[LNB]Arsene Wenger showed why he buys cheap with the big-money captures of Richard Wright and Francis Jeffers, Chelsea proved money can't buy you everything when they paid over £30million for Andrey Shevchenko, and Liverpool fans will recall the disappointment of the 'new Zidane' Bruno Cheyrou.[LNB]Still, I could only pick five so here are some players that have lived long in my memory - for all the wrong reasons. [LNB]5. Bosko Balaban: To be fair to Balaban, he's not the only striker to struggle in the Premier League, so perhaps his inclusion is harsh. Still, most big-money buys at least get a game for their club.[LNB]Balaban's record outside of England is remarkably good and Aston Villa fans must have been rubbing their hands when Doug Ellis released his usually-tight purse strings to splash nearly £6million on a player that had been top scorer in Croatia two years in succession.[LNB]You'd think John Gregory would have at least tried him in the team, but Balaban was so bad that he didn't make a single start for the Villans - and didn't get scoring in his eight substitute appearances.[LNB]Balaban was soon loaned back to Dinamo Zagreb and quickly proved the difference between the Croatian and English leagues with 15 goals in just 24 games but that didn't persuade Gregory to give him another chance and the man dubbed Villa's worst-ever signing was eventually released from his £20k-a-week contract. [LNB]4. Marco Boogers: Harry Redknapp is the ultimate wheeler-dealer but for every Sulley Muntari is a Florin Raducioiu and for every Lassana Diarra is a Marco Boogers.[LNB]Redknapp only had to pay Sparta Rotterdam £1million to take Boogers to West Ham, but it hardly turned out to be money well spent. The Hammers chief later admitted he had never seen the striker play, but he must have been wishing he's never seen him full stop when, on his second substitute appearance, 'Mad Marco' just failed to cut Gary Neville into two pieces with the sort of tackle to make Chopper Harris wince. By the way, he'd only been on the pitch for 90 seconds.[LNB]Remarkably Boogers did make two further fleeting appearances in the Claret and Blue but he soon disappeared for several weeks before turning up on a caravan site somewhere back in his native Holland. A doctor's note declared him mentally unfit to play football and suffice to say the striker was never seen in England again.[LNB]3. Ade Akinbiyi: As a Stoke fan I've got a lot of time for Ade, but even I can't forget just how bad he was at Leicester. He'd done brilliantly with Gillingham, Bristol City and Wolves but clearly the move to the Premier League was a step too far.[LNB]It's fair to say Peter Taylor made more than one or two mistakes at Filbert Street, but high up the list must be paying £5.5million for the man rather unaffectionally labelled 'Akinbadbuy' by fed-up Foxes fans. [LNB]He actually scored a very respectable 10 goals in his first season in East Midlands, but he was not quite so successful during the 2001/02 campaign that saw Leicester relegated. He spent the first 11 games regularly hitting rows X, Y and Z but then, after The Sun had named him as the Premier League's worst striker, Akinbiyi broke his duck against Sunderland.[LNB]It was a six-yard effort that went in via a deflection but the frontman ripped off his shirt and ran around the pitch flexing his muscles like he'd won the World Cup.[LNB]Unfortunately for Akinbiyi, that goal did not lead to a flurry of others and just one further strike in his next 10 appearances did little to enhance his rock-bottom reputation. He was sold to Crystal Palace in February 2002 but £2.2million only bought the Eagles three goals in 24 league games.[LNB]2. Massimo Taibi: Make no mistake about it, Manchester United have made some terrible signings in the Premier League. Juan Sebastian Veron, David Bellion, Klebersen and Eric Djemba-Djemba all feature on their list of money spent badly, but none of them were quite as comical as Taibi.[LNB]Mark Bosnich had already tried and failed to replace Peter Schmeichel by the time Sir Alex Ferguson paid Venezia £4.5million for the Italian, but the Australian looked like Lev Yashin compared to the 'Blind Venetian'.[LNB]Ferguson probably should have questioned why Venezia was Taibi's seventh club, but it did not stop the Scot from throwing his new acquisition into a massive game against Liverpool just one week after signing him.[LNB]Taibi's first action was to flap at a free-kick that allowed Sami Hyypia to score but it was in his third appearance against Southampton that he entered football folklore with one of the great goalkeeping gaffes. [LNB]Matt Le Tissier turned away in disgust as his weak shot trickled towards the hands of Taibi, but the Italian inexplicably allowed the ball to slip through his hands, under his body, through his legs, and into the net. A star was born.[LNB]Taibi was allowed one final chance against Chelsea but Ferguson finally realised he'd made a mistake when the Blues ran out 5-0 winners and the goalkeeper unsurprsingly never played for the Red Devils again. He is now a long-forgotten 39-year-old playing in Serie B.[LNB]1. Ali Dia: Ali Dia simply has to go down as the worst signing made by any club, in any league, in any country, ever. Graeme Souness won everything going as a player and enjoyed the odd bit of a success as a manager, but he'll forever be remembered as the man who signed Dia for Southampton.[LNB]Dia had played in the French lower leagues, been rejected by Port Vale and Gillingham and played at semi-pro level for Blyth Spartans, but he somehow managed to get 21 minutes of Premier League football in 1996 after catching Souness out with the mother of all scams.[LNB]When the Scot received a phone call from who he believed was former World Player of the Year George Weah, you could have forgiven him for being a tad curious. Quite why Souness believed Weah would make such a call is anyone's guess, but he listened intensely as 'Weah' told him of an old Paris Saint-Germain team-mate that had played 13 times as a striker for Senegal.[LNB]The Saints boss clearly couldn't believe his luck and soon handed Dia a one-month contract with the intention of trying him out for the reserves against Newcastle. However, that game was cancelled and Souness put his new signing on the bench for a home Premier League clash with Leeds. Then, 32 minutes in, Matthew Le [LNB]Tissier picked up an injury.[LNB]On went Dia at The Dell to much anticipation. But anticipation turned to pure disbelief and just 21 minutes later he was withdrawn by Souness after putting in a performance of unbelievable ineptness. Think of the worst player you've ever seen, then imagine someone a hundred times worst than that and you might be getting close to just how poor Dia was that afternoon.[LNB]It soon emerged the phone call Souness received was actually from Dia's agent and the amateur's contract was cancelled after less than two weeks at the club. He went on to play non-league football with Gateshead but was so bad that even they transfered him. What a player![LNB]Your top fives[LNB]There's plenty more terrible players we haven't even mentioned so use the story comment facility to give us your top fives, and to recall your memories of Balaban, Boogers, Akinbiyi, Taibi and Dia.[LNB][LNB]
