Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The Top 5 Premiership Flops

By Nick Verite


The Premiership is full of quality players these days - having all been attracted by the moolah that floats around so easily. But in the early days of the Premiership, managers didn't seem to even care about researching a player. They could have signed the Queen Mum for all they knew. Here's my top 5 Premiership flops...

5. Marco Boogers: Now this guy was hilarious. God knows where West Ham found him - well in fact, we do know - they found him on a trailer park and they paid him loads of money to play one match - almost kill someone - get sent off and walk back to the dressing room looking like Thomas Gravesen on acid. Brilliant. What a fool.

4. Tomas Brolin: What makes this story so sad is that Brolin came with a huge reputation, having never put a foot wrong. When he put a foot on English soil, however, everything started to go pear-shaped, including Brolin himself who ballooned in size. He cost Leeds 4.5m which in those days was a lot of money, and George Graham shipped him out after just 19 games. Crystal Palace gave him a crack but when Brolin was found upside down in a dustbin outside Burger King, even they got shot of him. That last bit may or may not be true.

3. Steve Marlet: Marlet was never really that bad - it was just the 11.5m price tag that turned a few heads and got people thinking "Hey - have Fulham really found a decent player here?" No they blood hadn't! He was worth about 1.5m, but Al Fayed wasn't thinking straight and mucked the cheque up. Marlet came, played a little, left little impression - and left.

2. Jean-Alain Boumsong: How on earth did he get a transfer to Juventus after the shambolic display he put in for Newcastle - week in, week out? In fact, how on earth did Newcastle get him? Every week, Alan Hansen would point out how bad Boumsong is, but in came Juventus - "Hey, we'll have some of that" thought the masters of defending themselves. Perhaps the worst defender ever in the history of defending.

1. Ali Dia. I just love to hear about Ali Dia - it's the funniest football story ever, and made especially so because it happened to Graeme Souness - the worst manager ever. Ali Dia comes on for about two minutes before Souness realises he's been had - this is not George Weah's cousin, it's some bloke from a caravan park! Brilliant.

Can you think of anyone worse than this lot? Give me a shout!

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