Gronbaek, Lallana, Taylor, Cornet, BBD, Wood, Sugawara, Fraser, Archer or Edwards

[Midfield_General]

Which one wins the award for the most utterly pointless signing of the season? 

Or are there any more deserving nominations? 

The only rule is that it has to be someone who was brought in this season, who the geniuses who run the club scouted and identified as someone who they specifically thought would be a good signing to help us in the Premier League (so Stewart doesn't count as he was here already). 

[Whitey Grandad]

I’d forgotten about Grønbæk and it appears that Jurić has too. Why wasn’t he on the bench on Saturday?

[ally_uk]

Yep some of our business has been ridiculous.... 

[benali-shorts]

Lest we forget Ryan Fraser too

[benjii]

Christ.

[ant]

Got to be Lallana, hasn't it? 

At least Brereton-Diaz and Sugawara have some form of sell-on value, no matter how meagre.

Cornet was quickly off the wage bill, and Grønbæk will be similar. 

Nobody expected significant minutes from Lallana, but he's only accumulated 444 - less than 5 full matches. With incredibly limited impact within that.

No amount of 'great to have about the dressing room' (🙄) makes up for that.

[Whitey Grandad]

45 minutes ago, benjii said:

Christ.

When did we sign Him?

[Midfield_General]

Imagine having any other job where someone puts north of £25,000 in your bank account every seven days, but you don’t have to actually contribute anything, and it’s just in return for being ‘a good lad to have around the place.’ 

Football is insane. 

Edited Saturday at 17:21 by Midfield_General

[CB Fry]

Genuinely forgot that Lallana was even here - when was the last time he was even on the bench?

[Midfield_General]

3 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Genuinely forgot that Lallana was even here - when was the last time he was even on the bench?

Was an unused sub against Wolves, apparently. Can't remember the last time was actually on the pitch though. 

Remember all those games he was going to be so valuable in, to come on for the last 20 minutes and use his experience to help us close them out?

[StrangelyBrown]

Lallana was a known entity and clearly a pointless signing before we got him. All the rest were gambles that didn't pay off.

[Toadhall Saint]

1 hour ago, Midfield_General said:

Was an unused sub against Wolves, apparently. Can't remember the last time was actually on the pitch though. 

Remember all those games he was going to be so valuable in, to come on for the last 20 minutes and use his experience to help us close them out?

Waste of space and money.

[ApprenticeBillionaire]

Lallana for me.

For 100 reasons.

He'd be top of that list just by virtue of the way he left for Liverpool.

We should never have given him his final fucking pay day.

We shouldn't have given a flying fuck about him.

He didn't give a toss when he left and his behaviour was diabolical to force that move.

Edited Saturday at 17:40 by ApprenticeBillionaire

[IFHP]

3 hours ago, ally_uk said:

Yep some of our business has been ridiculous.... 

Only some? I’d say most of last summers Window was a shit show.

[Disco Stu]

Lallana.

[Badger]

24 minutes ago, IFHP said:

Only some? I’d say most of last summers Window was a shit show.

Ramsdale, and Fernandes aside agree with you. 

[Saint_clark]

3 hours ago, ant said:

Got to be Lallana, hasn't it? 

At least Brereton-Diaz and Sugawara have some form of sell-on value, no matter how meagre.

Cornet was quickly off the wage bill, and Grønbæk will be similar. 

Nobody expected significant minutes from Lallana, but he's only accumulated 444 - less than 5 full matches. With incredibly limited impact within that.

No amount of 'great to have about the dressing room' (🙄) makes up for that.

So many of us who said this at the time and were shouted down. What a waste of time and money he was/is.

 

Pretty sure Martin just wanted to add to his crew of bearded British banter bum boys.

Edited Saturday at 18:30 by Saint_clark

[ally_uk]

So why isn't Lallana playing? Is he injured? Past it? 

Surely he could offer us something

[Badger]

27 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

So many of us who said this at the time and were shouted down. What a waste of time and money he was/is.

Pretty sure Martin just wanted to add to his crew of bearded British banter bum boys.

Take the boy out of Brighton and all ....

Edited Saturday at 18:57 by Badger

[HarvSFC]

You have to appreciate that after the summer's shitshow, we still went out in January and added another useless signing in Gronbaek. Alongside some U21s, who I don't know how they're getting on in Udoh, Sanda and Izzet Furkan Malak.

I really hope it's Mowbray and Martin who oversaw all this, and not somebody still at the club going into the summer.

[stknowle]

We have TEN points. Lallana, whilst being an utter cunt for the way he left us several years ago, assisted one of those points. So not him for me. I think I’d have to go with Taylor whilst sympathising with him to some extent that he wasn’t given much of a chance.

[Harry_SFC]

Probably Sugawara for me. Absolutely calamity at the back and we paid a decent fee for him. 

[woodsaint1]

At least Lallana has contributed. Not much, but hes been on the pitch.

I forgot we even signed Cornet

[Turkish]

Bros will cook in the champions Bros know ball 

[Badger]

13 minutes ago, woodsaint1 said:

At least Lallana has contributed. Not much, but hes been on the pitch.

I forgot we even signed Cornet

Cornet is now at Genoa.

Worrying if he might have been Spors last signing for them. 

[Ted Bates Statue]

Lallana - the only way his signing could be justified was for him to identify how we needed to seriously up our standards to compete in the Premier League, with him lined up to get appointed caretaker player/manager within 10 games of the season starting.

[SaintsLoyal]

Lallana the treacherous snake

 

Totally embarrassing after what he was up to before he left.  

 

 

 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

31 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Bros will cook in the champions Bros know ball 

Good to hear Spors getting some names in...

If Spadau Ballet were good enough for Melchester Rovers, Bros are good enough for us.

[Badger]

17 minutes ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

If Spadau Ballet were good enough for Melchester Rovers, Bros are good enough for us.

In the age of diversity and inclusion. we should try signing the Big Breasted Red Indian from Billy the Fish as well. 

[Jonnyboy]

Lallana was obviously going to be a repeat of the dismal Walcott re-signing.

[Lighthouse]

I just can’t get my head around why on Earth you’d make so many obviously pointless signings of players who clearly aren’t good enough, just because they’re cheap. There were a solid 8-9 signings this year where we’d literally have been better off just buying nobody instead.

Our transfer strategy can be summed up with the sentence, "I couldn’t afford a holiday in Mauritius, so I bought a dog turd for £50 instead."

[The Kraken]

11 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I just can’t get my head around why on Earth you’d make so many obviously pointless signings of players who clearly aren’t good enough, just because they’re cheap. There were a solid 8-9 signings this year where we’d literally have been better off just buying nobody instead.

Our transfer strategy can be summed up with the sentence, "I couldn’t afford a holiday in Mauritius, so I bought a dog turd for £50 instead."

I agree mostly, but they’re not even that cheap when you add up transfer fee / signing fee / loan fee and wages for nearly double figures of players. It’s just obscene how much we have wasted. A complete and utter catastrophe of a summer recruitment policy.

Edited Saturday at 21:46 by The Kraken

[aintforever]

Has to be Taylor, has he even played?

Whoever is in charge of scouting needs to be fired.

 

[Colinjb]

So much about all of those signings was wrong, but bringing the Rat back in set the tone from the beginning. A divisive, waste of money that showed that the powers that be had totally under-estimated the task at hand. 

[Thripp87]

Ryan Fraser, Ronnie Edward’s. The list can go on a little further.

Fraser for me, complete waste of money and anyone could see from his little promotional video that Martin was just creating a boys club.

£19m on Downes hardly looks good business either. 

[SaintNewForest]

Quite possibly one of the worst windows in our entire history? 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

9 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

I just can’t get my head around why on Earth you’d make so many obviously pointless signings of players who clearly aren’t good enough, just because they’re cheap. There were a solid 8-9 signings this year where we’d literally have been better off just buying nobody instead.

Our transfer strategy can be summed up with the sentence, "I couldn’t afford a holiday in Mauritius, so I bought a dog turd for £50 instead."

I can't get my head around this either. I remember when BBD was one of our first signings last year, people on here were more or less saying, he's only £7m, you can't go far wrong. Well, you can...and we did.

Arguably Archer could also be included in the list and the £7m on BBD + the £15m we spent on Archer ++ means we could have spent more on a better player - provided we could have persuaded them to come here!

[Turkish]

9 hours ago, The Kraken said:

I agree mostly, but they’re not even that cheap when you add up transfer fee / signing fee / loan fee and wages for nearly double figures of players. It’s just obscene how much we have wasted. A complete and utter catastrophe of a summer recruitment policy.

We’ve done it for years.. our transfers since about 2016 have been a who’s who of how not to buy players. Dozens of average players brought cheaply in the same position costing more when you look at total costs inc wages than buying 2 or 3 decent ones. 
 

I don’t get why we never learn. 5 players for £15m earning £50k a week and hope one or two of them come good or 2 decent players for £35-£40m earning £100k a week. Simple maths tell you which is the better deal along with the fact they’re going to contribute more on the pitch too

[Turkish]

31 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

I can't get my head around this either. I remember when BBD was one of our first signings last year, people on here were more or less saying, he's only £7m, you can't go far wrong. Well, you can...and we did.

Arguably Archer could also be included in the list and the £7m on BBD + the £15m we spent on Archer ++ means we could have spent more on a better player - provided we could have persuaded them to come here!

I can understand why we brought BBD. Did well At Sheffield United and decent in the championship what I don’t understand if why he was then used as a winger.

your point is correct though and I said the same in the previous post, 2 average players for £22m none of which have contributed anything this season. If you add in Armstrong, Onachu, you’re talking about £55m worth of strikers with 4 goals between them this season. Youre not telling me we couldn’t have found a £40m striker somewhere who would have scored more than that. 

[Midfield_General]

45 minutes ago, Thripp87 said:

Ryan Fraser, Ronnie Edward’s. The list can go on a little further.

 

28 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Arguably Archer could also be included in the list 

You’re absolutely right - list updated to reflect.

Let’s make this an official end of season award, in keeping with the vibes of this shitshow of a campaign.

@Lighthouse - please can we have a poll? 

[LGTL]

50 minutes ago, SaintNewForest said:

Quite possibly one of the worst windows in our entire history? 

It was the worst, bar none. A fucking embarrassment. 

[Barton Saint]

My god a whole team in effect it’s horrific 

[Gloucester Saint]

16 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

When did we sign Him?

At Arsenal these days isn’t he? Injured as well.

[Gloucester Saint]

37 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

 

You’re absolutely right - list updated to reflect.

Let’s make this an official end of season award, in keeping with the vibes of this shitshow of a campaign.

@Lighthouse - please can we have a poll? 

Nathan Wood as well. Horrific from Martin, Mowbray and Ankerson. Then you can add the extension for McCarthy as well which must have been decided on the lash they seem to have been on all summer. Zero knowledge of the EPL between any of them.

The extension for Smallbone before they’d seen if he could physically handle the PL was another act of stupidity.

Edited yesterday at 08:26 by Gloucester Saint

[Midfield_General]

Wood’s already on the list. McCarthy and Smallbone you are right about of course, but they don’t qualify for the award as they were here already. This is for atrocious new signings that were made at the beginning of this season. Fraser I’ll allow as he was only a loan before. 

[SaintNewForest]

37 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Nathan Wood as well. Horrific from Martin, Mowbray and Ankerson. Then you can add the extension for McCarthy as well which must have been decided on the lash they seem to have been on all summer. Zero knowledge of the EPL between any of them.

The extension for Smallbone before they’d seen if he could physically handle the PL was another act of stupidity.

Wasn't the Smallbone extension a year before? 

[Lighthouse]

I’ve added a multiple choice poll, for arguments sake let’s say you’re allowed three votes. I went with:

Lallana - Hasn’t been anywhere near any kind of fitness for years and was so obviously going to struggle to even get on the pitch that I haven’t a clue what we were thinking.

Gronbaek - Because he came after all the absolute garbage from the summer, we set ourselves an astonishingly low bar to find someone who was a marginal improvement… and we still failed.

Wood - He’s a bottom half Championship defender who even Swansea fans didn’t rate. He is and always has been so far below the standard required at this level, even as cover, I once again haven’t got a clue what we were thinking. What the actual f**k!?!

[benjii]

Another vote for Spade Face Adam. Fuck off.

[Andy Hill]

All of them - equally appalling.

[revolution saint]

Archer for me given that he cost the most money and is probably the signing that will hurt the club finances the most.