One thing that've always bothered me with Fulham is our tendency with signing these cheep, obscure players no-one ever really heard about and that no-one else in the premiership would even consider signing? I cant really think of any other side (maybe Sunderland) that has a history and tradition of signing crap, unknown players.
Let have a looksy, shall we?
Stolcers, Sava, Elrich, Elliott, Runström, Stoor, Elm, Kallio, Kuqi, Johnson, Teymourian, B H Riise, Halliche, Somogyi, Sá, Gecov, Manolev, Tavares, Zverotic.
Is it just poor scouting? The managers fault?
I dont see any fault in signing a unknown youngster that later doesnt fulfill his potential, but theese lads are well past any "talent" stage in their careers. Why did we sign them when everything about them screamed rubbishness. Lets take the Swedes for instant: Runström was never near any sort of star talent status in Sweden. He was known for being a striker that ran a lot but never could score - so why buy a player that a ) cant score in a crap league and b ) why sign a player that wasnt even top five in a crap league? Cookie could litterally have just asked any Swedish supporter about RUnström and they've would have told him that Runström is a alright striker but no where near premiership class. Same goes for Elm, not in any way a player that took swedish allsvenskan with storm, never scored a lot of goals and at that age (28?) he wasnt even near the swedis national team.
Why did we go for quantity and never quality? I would have traded all of them for just 1 decent, solid signing like Huddlestone or Malanda or any other player that had a good track record.
had u heard of dembele before we signed him? or hangeland?
...and that obscure bloke from Bulgaria? Barbershop or something.
...and that goalkeeper bloke who'd only played in one World Cup final and his mate, the centre-half.
Not many had heard of McBride or Dempsey either I'm guessing.
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Who knew about Steed?
Of course I've heard about Hangeland, he was tearing it up in Denmark. Same goes for Dembele who scored quite a lot in Holland, think he was a winger then. Steed wasnt a household name, sure, but playing for Lyon is hardly what Ive would call obscure.
McBride was a nice find, same with Dempsey even though Dempsey I believe was back then seen as a rising star in the States, which cant be said about any of the names ive mentioned.
And there was that unknown lad from Metz who scored 5 goals in 3 years and 1 goal in 11 games on loan at Newcastle. Then he came to us and luckily got 53 in 117 games - now what was he called? Oh yes, King something.
Quote from: The Dark Zat Knight Rises on May 17, 2014, 10:43:10 PM
Of course I've heard about Hangeland, he was tearing it up in Denmark. Same goes for Dembele who scored quite a lot in Holland, think he was a winger then. Steed wasnt a household name, sure, but playing for Lyon is hardly what Ive would call obscure.
McBride was a nice find, same with Dempsey even though Dempsey I believe was back then seen as a rising star in the States, which cant be said about any of the names ive mentioned.
Umm, so are you now saying that we DON'T always sign obscure players?
You could select any club from any league over the last 10 years and pick and choose players whom they've signed who weren't up to much from obscure clubs..
And in the same breath you could do the same the other way round, mentioning the better players they've signed!
Pointless thread
Why do some fans always look on the negative side of things, how about stating some of the good signings, who would of thought someone like van der sar would ever play for us.
All clubs make crap signings, most signings are a slight gamble as you never know how a player will settle.
Stop living in a goldfish bowl
"The real problem is that the cost of these obscure players always seems to be inversely proportional to their value "
Discuss.
I thought we signed players who become obscure AFTER we signed them.
Football club sometimes signs players that don't make it: News at 11
Come on.
We had seven current or former international captains on the books this season, which is pretty good for a bottom-half club in a tiny stadium on the Thames.
Have you seen Hull, Norwich or Stoke team sheet recently? They're not exactly the Galácticos.
Wreh, Diawara, cygan, Stepanovs, Park, bischoff, Lupoli.
Thought I'd play the same game with arsenal. These off the top of my head for a club I don't follow, so it's clearly not restricted to fulham.
Quote from: PokerMatt on May 18, 2014, 10:25:36 AM
Wreh, Diawara, cygan, Stepanovs, Park, bischoff, Lupoli.
Thought I'd play the same game with arsenal. These off the top of my head for a club I don't follow, so it's clearly not restricted to fulham.
you could add Henry and Viera to that list pretty much unknown when signed
Wouldn't say Henry was unknown. He'd been highly touted at Monaco and made a move to Juve for reasonably serious money for someone so young, he was just played out of position and it didn't work out.
And Man Utd have signed the likes of Manucho, Bebe, Kleberson, Djemba Djemba, Forlan was hardly a world renown player at the time, Taibi, van der Gouw. Every team signs players under the radar.
Bebe
Established player are more expensive.
Quote from: King_Crud on May 18, 2014, 01:59:08 AM
Football club sometimes signs players that don't make it: News at 11
Exactly. Look at how excited we got at Ruiz... Name doesn't necessarily bring the best results. Sometimes they're a gamble.
It's easier to bash these signings in hindsight.
BUT if these players had of worked out i bet you wouldn't have knocked them...may even of sang their names along with many others.
The otherside of the coin would be we carry on spending big money on well known names that could turn into total flops. Sometimes its not through potential but players not fitting in or adapting to a system or even a cultural change.
Managerial changes also come into this. especially if the new one don't rate you.
Like the everyday man on the street, you can go for a new job thinking this is the one for me then after a week think what have i done.
Just had a look at Real Madrid's worst signings and the money they spent and they are all big names.
Woodgate, Walter Samuel, Javier Saviola, Nicolas Anelka, Antonio Cassano
Another way is going through the youth product system but when you look at these most have been released or bought from clubs at an early age, and I reckon hardly any one had ever heard of them before....Cauley Woodrow (luton?) Dan Burn (Darlington) Chris Smalling (Maidstone) even Ray Houghton (West Ham).
I forgot Gordon Davies from Merthyr Tydfil
Most clubs do this. Swansea paid 2m for some nobody called Michu which seemed to turn out all right. I have generally liked our scouting though I thought the players that came in under Roy when we were uncovering nobody's were a lot better than the "Class of Sanchez" and "Class of Jol". We can only hope that the "Class of Magath" is more like Roy's and that the players are 21 year old diamonds in the rough from some obscure Division 2 team by some fishing village on the north sea.
I wasn't going to get involved with this debate, but it's Sunday and nothing else is going on.
Players that are "known" are known for a reason, chances are, multiple clubs are looking at the same players which drives up the price. If you can find a diamond in some random country, then job done.
We have scouts all over the world, that's a good thing, sometimes you buy players that are on your radar - albeit on the outer regions of it - because they'll plug a gap in your squad for a small fee and cheap wages, like Elsad Zverotic.
A lot of the Scandinavian's that Roy Hodgson brought in (Stoor, Elm and Kallio) were squad fillers. At the point of signing, Fredrik Stoor was set to be our starting right back but for John Pantsil's form there. Others like Nevland and Hangeland done a very good job.
I don't understand your issue with spending a small amount on a player that has performed well in another country, it's like the argument of "Ronaldo is better than Messi because he's done it in two countries."
Marcel Gecov for example, was in the "Team of the Tournament" for the 2011 U21 European Championship along with Christian Eriksen, Javi Martinez, Thiago Alcantara, Juan Mata and Daniel Sturridge. Now I don't know whether we brought him on the back of that tournament or not, but that's very promising none-the-less.
At the stage that we were in during Al Fayed's final 5-6 years, we were trying to pick up gems for nothing and sometimes it worked - Dembele and Hangeland - and sometimes it didn't - Stoor, Kallio and Zverotic.
Also, it depends on what your definition of obscure is, many would never have heard of Boa Morte when we brought him in, or Malbranque, or Hangeland, or Dembele, or Dempsey, or Bouba Diop, or Saha.
Some players do superbly well in another country, like Bryan Ruiz, but struggle to transfer it to England. Other players come to England unknown and settle in, like Brede Hangeland. Even some players join a bigger team and relish the higher quality of coaching, you could use Chris Smalling as an example of this... He wouldn't be playing for Manchester United if he had stayed at Maidstone.
Slightly off topic, but Bony from Swansea (before he went) was the signing we should have made. Whilst we were dicking around with the likes of Bent, Berbatov, Ruiz etc, I thought to myself why the hell aren't we in for this guy? Think he cost 8 million and had everything.
Quote from: Admin on May 18, 2014, 03:27:46 PM
Slightly off topic, but Bony from Swansea (before he went) was the signing we should have made. Whilst we were dicking around with the likes of Bent, Berbatov, Ruiz etc, I thought to myself why the hell aren't we in for this guy? Think he cost 8 million and had everything.
£12m, but I agree. We were heavily linked, I can find newspaper rumours going all the way back to 2011. Bony kept Swansea up this season.