Signings which made you ecstatic but ended up disappointing you most

[Kenilworthy]

I think Lawrie Mac accused him of cheating (as in not putting in the effort) after a defeat and their relationship was never the same again.

We are getting a bit off topic with KK in this thread. In his first season he took our play to another level, in his second season we went top of the league for the first time in our history, he was top goal scorer in the first division and PFA player of the year - I can't see how that meets any definition of disappointing. What was massively disappointing was that he decided to leave after having promised us a further season.

[david in sweden]

I am with you David. He spent a lot of the second season out injured and I was hoping he would stay for another season to make up for it.

 

Didn't he fall out with Big Mac?

 

 

Several years ago I saw a video clip ..interview with KK about his own career. After getting past the " buy the lamp in Germany " story.....and coming to Saints,

 

he said that he (Keegan) travelled with the team to Ireland (pre-season) and they played a couple of nondescript games against low level Irish League opposition.

 

He was concerned about the poor quality of our play and when he got back took Lawrie Mac aside (as he returned from his Florida holiday) and said ......

 

KK - those games were terrible ..you've got a real problem here ....

 

LM...(replied spontaneously)........you're getting to be a problem......

 

KK ....that's alright ....I'll be gone by Thursday (and he was).

Apparantly he had a clause in his contract that said he could walk away when he wanted to. He went onto Newcastle and made a name for himself there.

 

KK said ..it was just a heated conversation on the spur of the moment.....it was all water under the bridge now and he and Lawrie were still on good speaking terms.

[5string]

I don't remember Le Saux being that bad. Granted at that stage of his career he was a downgrade on Bridge, but he wasn't terrible by any means.

 

Redknapp was ready for the knackers yard when he joined. To be fair to him he did try, it was just that his body couldn't respond. He seemed genuinely gutted when we were relegated.

 

You're probably right about Le Saux regaining some form. I think my area of disappointment is the amount of time they spent wth us.

[Dark Munster]

In the 90's with our relegation struggles, I was always excited by players we signed from bigger clubs as I never knew what to expect, but hoped for good things. Some came off, like Beattie and Shipperley, but some didn't, like Kanchelskis, Marshall and Boa Morte.

 

One who hasn't been mentioned that falls in that bracket was Mark Walters. Great pedigree but hardly played for us.

The Shipperley I remember was crap 90% of the time.

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

I might be wrong here as I was fairly young at the time, but why hasn't Ricardo Fuller been mentioned??

 

Was he any good?

 

Thinking back, the only person I remember calling this a triffic signing was 'Arry. I seem to recall Fuller being booed from the off because he'd signed from Pompey.

[Kenilworthy]

Thinking back' date=' the only person I remember calling this a triffic signing was 'Arry. I seem to recall Fuller being booed from the off because he'd signed from Pompey.[/quote']

The thread is about players who made us ecstatic when they signed. I don't think that applies to Fuller. But actually he was a decent signing for only £90k. After a spell on loan at Ipswich he came back a different player and scored six goals in six games to keep us out of relegation trouble at the end of the 2005/6 season - and with 9 goals he was our top scorer! We got a good return in selling him to Stoke for £500k and he stayed with them for six years, scored over 40 goals and helped them get promotion as well as playing a number of seasons in the top division. We were too quick to judge him.

[CB Fry]

Ricardo Fuller was the Shane Long of his day, in that people on this forum went on and on and on and on about his transfer fee.