Seriously, Roger Johnson and Jamie O'Hara for a collective £12 million. Johnson had been tipped for an England call up with Blues, was supposed to sort out all our defensive problems and was named our club captain as soon as we signed him. Jamie O'Hara had already been on loan with us and looked top class, there was a thread about 10 pages long on TWF full of wulfs worrying about not being able to sign him permanently. The only other player we signed that summer was a back up goalie on a free and yet when the transfer window closed we were over the moon with our transfer window. We got 7 points from three games, were briefly top of the Premier League table and these two looked like great signings. Two years later and here we are, League 1 with Johnson and O'Hara training with the U21's, still picking up £40K+ a week and unable to find new clubs because they've been utterly shocking. Two terrible, terrible footballers.
They were seen as bargains at the time! Blues had the Carson Yeung shenanigans going on and we got them to lower Johnson's price from £14 million to £7 million and O'Hara had a £5.5 million pound clause in the loan deal from the previous season. We were worried about another club coming in and nicking O'Hara from under our noses becuase it was such a low price.
Darren Byfield is another one, did have one pretty good season with us, but I remember first going to see Gills games when he was crap and it was very boring.
Paul Telfer- Had played for Celtic in the Champions League recently and was just absolutely awful. Fair play to the guy for cancelling his contract though when we had no money. Asmir Begovic- Well he wasn't exciting at the time, but it baffles me how he's done so well because he was dire for us.
I can't think of any for us. We tend to just sign average players that nobody else wants on free transfers...we expect them to be rubbish haha!
Juan Ugarte, signed on a free from Wrexham after half a decent season for them where he was scoring for fun. Seemed like a coup at the time as he was linked all over the place. He was ****. Went back to Wrexham on loan after 6 months, retired with an injury within a year. Anthony Elding. Spent £200k on him after he ripped L2 to shreds with Stockport. We spent literally 12 months making bids for him (Stockport, then Leeds) and then we realised why Leeds were happy to sell after having him for just five months. Abysmal player, I'm not even sure how he was a one season wonder for Stockport as here he simply hadn't the foggiest - tripping over the ball inside the area was as good as it got. The man who bought him is now Jose Mourinho's assistant. Great player in his day but I think even he admitted he lost it by leaving us for the money at Rushden, never the same again. Mind you, he could always have done better, potentially the Premier League had he put his mind to it. Packs bags in Iceland now I think.
We didn't pay £7 million for Johnson, it was apparently "only" £4 million, O'Hara was £ 5 million from what I recall, that's only around £9 million give or take 500k so it wasn't that much of a waste
I think it was Johnson 4 million and OHara 3.5 million according to the club. I agree with both though, shocking investments although I will admit I never expected either of them to be flops and was happy when we signed them
We never make transfer fees public so it can't be according to the club. I thought O'Hara's £5 million pound clause was common knowledge though. I definitely remember the club saying that we'd broken our transfer record for a midfielder.
Initial reports suggested 12 million for both of them but then both fees were chopped to 4 million and 3.5 so I always assumed the club had wanted to try and make it known that we hadnt paid that sort of money. Either way they have been poor but Johnson far worse than O Hara for me and when everyone looks back at this period they will be the two players we think of most.
Rod Wallace and Tommy Johnson when fit they were good players but were very rarely available for selection
Izale McLeod - Huge hype because of his earlier stint here and decent early season with Portsmouth, yet completely failed to live up to any sort of expectation and had an utterly abysmal time (and some of the most spectacular misses, including one from centimetres off goal he managed to scuff the opposite direction) from joining to the end of the season. Although that said he has started to pick up some form in the pre-season and hopefully a great, confidence-boosting goal tonight to have some sort of affect on this season. Charlie MacDonald - Was impressed by his spell at Brentford so spent a fee on him and in return got a striker who was almost entirely impotent in front of goal and after a certain point had absolutely no confidence whatsoever, doesn't sound as if he's done well since leaving us. Keanu Marsh-Brown - Hyped up when he joined us on loan as a youth player full of promise but quickly turned into a mess on and off the pitch, started fights between with our players and ****ed up the dressing room atmosphere. Was sent back early I think or was prematurely shown the door some other way.
