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Who is the player who you had the highest hopes for only to be a flop?


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Some of these suggestions really surprise me.

 

 

Anders Svensson came with a big reputation? Nobody I knew had ever heard of him when he joined us from Elfsborg.

 

 

Well does that surprise me -or not?, I wonder.

 

For folk over here .... he was " the Swedish David Beckham " when he started out as a teenager, and always looked superb in his club games.

 

His advancement to the national squad made a big name and he became a sort of iconic figure.

 

His final game for Elfsborg (before moving to SMS)..produced the goal of the decade (I should think) ..a left wing solo run and a blistering left-footer ...but from 40 yards out ! Goalie hardly moved !

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Let's not consider Ramirez in the same breath as people like Skacel and Delgado, unless you were expecting him to fit right in and score 20 goals this season.

 

I had over-inflated expectations of Bradley Wright-Phillips which he inevitably didn't meet.

 

I still don't understand why Skacel is regarded as a failure. He scored goals for Hearts as a central attacking midfielder. We used him ahead of Bale as a left midfielder and for the first 6 months he was still the leading assister in the division.

 

After we sold Bale at the end of that season, for the rest of his career at Saints, Skacel was moved to left back, where he was pretty decent, and he was unlikely to score many goals from left back.

 

Skacel was a perfectly decent player scoring and assisting along with the best in the League when he was played in his position, and a decent left back when he was ridiculously played out of position. As far as how great people seemed to think he was, he was a good Scottish Premier League player outside the Old Firm, and that was about it - barely played for his national side even before he signed for us, and frankly I don't know where the hype came from. He was at best a good Championship player with potential to be a bottom half Prem player.

 

Delgado however was meant to be superb, and was less interesting than an expiring yoghurt and less effective than Chris Marsden growing an afro.

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This is Saints. Such a thread could end up being the longest ever, eclipsing the Pompey Takeover Saga in a matter of weeks.

 

It's hard to get past Delgado though. Thought he would bang them in which he did... two or three times. For me Kevin Phillips was a massive let down as well although at least he scored now and again.

 

Kevin Phillips was an unqualified success at Saints - it wasn't the attack that let us down, we scored the same number of goals as teams safely in mid-table. There's another one that gets a load of grief based on no facts whatsoever.

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I agree with much of what has been said on this thread, although I think some comments are a bit unfair in their treatment of aging players. In particular, I don't think Idiakez was that bad for us at first. However, many people are clearing remembering his form towards the end of his time with us when he had completely lost it. Idiakez is not the only player to whom this applies.

 

On another note, I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned 'Arry on this thread yet! I think that most of his signings were a complete disaster. Try Callum Davenport, Mikael Nilsson, Andreas Jakobsson, Jelle Van Damme, Jamie Redknapp and Olivier Bernard. Maybe you could give some credit for Henri Camara and Nigel Quashie, though not much. Ricardo Fuller may also have been a Redknapp signing - I'm not sure.

 

For a whole load of other players, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southampton_F.C._players_%28fewer_than_25_appearances%29 and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southampton_F.C._players_%2825%E2%80%9399_appearances%29. Not all of the players on those lists were rubbish - some were so good that they didn't stay with us long (e.g. AOC, Theo and Bale). Yet there are also plenty of players on those lists that were poor for us.

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I agree with much of what has been said on this thread, although I think some comments are a bit unfair in their treatment of aging players. In particular, I don't think Idiakez was that bad for us at first. However, many people are clearing remembering his form towards the end of his time with us when he had completely lost it. Idiakez is not the only player to whom this applies.

 

On another note, I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned 'Arry on this thread yet! I think that most of his signings were a complete disaster. Try Callum Davenport, Mikael Nilsson, Andreas Jakobsson, Jelle Van Damme, Jamie Redknapp and Olivier Bernard. Maybe you could give some credit for Henri Camara and Nigel Quashie, though not much. Ricardo Fuller may also have been a Redknapp signing - I'm not sure.

 

For a whole load of other players, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southampton_F.C._players_%28fewer_than_25_appearances%29 and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Southampton_F.C._players_%2825%E2%80%9399_appearances%29. Not all of the players on those lists were rubbish - some were so good that they didn't stay with us long (e.g. AOC, Theo and Bale). Yet there are also plenty of players on those lists that were poor for us.

 

Nilsson, Jakobsson & Van Damme weren't Harry signings

 

Delgado has o be the winner though, if you are judging it on thoughts before they signed

 

maybe of you were judging it on thoughts after 10 or so matches folly would be a good shout, he started very well and really dropped off the scene

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Kevin Phillips was an unqualified success at Saints - it wasn't the attack that let us down, we scored the same number of goals as teams safely in mid-table. There's another one that gets a load of grief based on no facts whatsoever.

 

I wasn't aware I had to produce facts. I had extremely high hopes for Kevin Phillips after his spell at Sunderland (remember the European golden boot) - and also we looked like a club on the up when he joined (8th in Prem and a FA Cup Final).

 

I suppose I was naive to assume he'd just slot in to the Southampton set-up, and of course nobody predicted our downward spiral (WGS leaving, a string of poor managers & signings etc) which didn't have anything to do with Kevin Phillips. But his time with us was hardly stellar was it?

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A bit harsh on Frank Worthington, he was 36 when he came to us. He was great player but only ever played for middle ranking sides. However he was almost ever present for the season we came second, you cant get better input than that. We lost out on the title that year because we couldnt beat Notts ****in County.

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Was it Ryan Smith(?) that was going to be as good as Arjen Robben? Just about everyone from that VP era, I know we were terrible at the time but I really did lap it all up. Building for the future, Simon Gillet was going to be our premiership "Fish" Mills was the next Ashley Cole :(

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....are you sure?

 

Sadly, yes - I imagine that my expectations were too high (I was very young and impressed that we got him back from Arsenal) but Don Roper reminded me of a cart horse not a thoroughbred.

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Saganowski was clearly not great post contract but a couple of points in his defence. He too was loaned out when he wanted to stay like Rasiak, to cut the wage bill, despite us struggling for a goal scorer. He is also often overlooked for his goal on the last day against Sheff Utd. Rewind to the game before, WBA away when Lallana scored, check his reaction from the bench (having been subbed) -went mad and hugged Pearson

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I wasn't aware I had to produce facts. I had extremely high hopes for Kevin Phillips after his spell at Sunderland (remember the European golden boot) - and also we looked like a club on the up when he joined (8th in Prem and a FA Cup Final).

 

I suppose I was naive to assume he'd just slot in to the Southampton set-up, and of course nobody predicted our downward spiral (WGS leaving, a string of poor managers & signings etc) which didn't have anything to do with Kevin Phillips. But his time with us was hardly stellar was it?

 

He scored 22 goals in 64 games for us and scored the only goal scored by a Saints player in Europe in about the last 25 years. He was "average" at absolute worst.

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Saganowski was clearly not great post contract but a couple of points in his defence. He too was loaned out when he wanted to stay like Rasiak, to cut the wage bill, despite us struggling for a goal scorer. He is also often overlooked for his goal on the last day against Sheff Utd. Rewind to the game before, WBA away when Lallana scored, check his reaction from the bench (having been subbed) -went mad and hugged Pearson

 

None of which defends the fact that he only played to get a permanent contract and just didn't try for getting on for 18 months after that. I saw his pre-season performance at Salisbury in 2008 and he may have wanted to stay but he was tangibly not putting in the effort needed to make him worth keeping.

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Try Callum Davenport, Mikael Nilsson and Olivier Bernard.

 

No expectations for Davenport, who was already widely known as being crap. None for Nilsson either, though his wussiness was only evident after he joined, and as for Bernard - he was as bad as Davenport for us, but having watching The Premiership Years 2003/4 on Sky last week, we was superb for Newcastle that season, and it's astonishing to see how quickly he became terrible within a year - so he's definitely a contender.

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Mostly saga seeing as he looked the mutts when on loan. Thought we'd breeze the championship with him. Didn't show up once he got a contract...

delgado, kanchelskis, boa morte, torpedo and some of the other youngsters who sounded amazing but never really materialised - mark peters? Perplyotkin? I can hardly remember them tbh.

 

In all fairness to him, we couldn't get a work permit so he went back to Russia and did quite well for himself. Anders Svensson was a disappointment for me but not once did we play to his strengths and Strachan didn't know how to deploy a creative midfielder. I expected more from people like Hirst, Howells and Hughes. Maybe we shouldn't sign older players whose name begins with H.

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