What past Charlton players do you view as the biggest waste of money spent by the club. It has to be based on a transfer fee, not on what wages the player was earning and not a player in on loan.
Francis Jeffers: 2.6m from Arsenal. Summer of 2004. Played 24 times, scored 5 goals. Let go on a free transfer to Blackburn at the end of the 2005/2006 season. Bar 2 goals in an early league game against Aston Villa, Jeffers flattered to deceive.
Andy Gray: 1.5m from Burnley. January 2008. Played 47 times, scored 9 goals before being sold to Barnsley in August 2009 for an undisclosed fee. Bought by Pardew during the transfer window to push us on back to the Premier League. Ended up relegated to League One 15 months later
Dennis Rommedahl: 2m from PSV Eindhoven. July 2004. Played 84 times, scored 6 goals before being sold to Ajax for £680,000 three years later (July 2007). Bar his goal against Palace and the occasional decent game, it was fair to say that English football did not suit his game.
Amdy Faye: 1.67m from Newcastle United. August 2006. 34 appearances in a Charlton shirt with the one goal away at Portsmouth during the 2006/2007 relegation season. Loaned out to Glasgow Rangers a year later for the season before they had enough of him and sent him back to us after 5 months. Signed for Stoke in August 2008.
That will do for starters. I can think of another dozen that would fall in that bracket, so over to you.
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I partly think the issue was that he wasnt played correctly, the ball would always go to his feet rather than pinging a ball just behind the defender and letting him use his pace to run on to it
Traore and Faye, hands down. Prior to that, Ralph Milne
Traore, Faye, Jeffers, Gray, McLeod, Hasselbaink (wages) and Dowie (for spending all that money) for me
Andy Gray
Luke Varney
All totally uselss and too much money for championship, big nose prick pardew pattern of shit striker signing.
Traore I though was crap before he came to us but at least he had some credentials when he came.
Faye is probably the worst professional footballer I've seen, awful, awful player and for that resin I'll go for him
I would have stuck with Jeffers for some reason, don't know why but cutbs gave up on him and saved the club some money by not playing himif memory serves correct
Obviously he played his part in that, but I always imagine that must have felt really rubbish for him.
Am I empathising too much?
Traore I think we sold for £500k, 6 months after ugly Iain spent £2m on him. I remember looking on the Liverpool and Newcastle message boards when we signed Traore and Faye, similar comments in relation to both, along the lines of:
"£2m - is that what we've paid Charlton to take him off us?!"
"One of the worst players I've ever seen, can't believe we've got a fee for him"
There are unlucky transfers, such as McLeod and Gray, where players arrive with a decent pedigree but don't live up to expectations. Faye and Traore, everyone in football knew they were useless. Absolutely no excuse for spending that sort of money on them. We can only dream of what might have happened if Curbs had been given £12m to spend instead of letting Dowie squander it.
Zheng Zhi did OK for us, but financially was another terrible bit of business, sign a guy for £2m, then he leaves on a Bosman 2 years later for nothing
On the other hand his goal for Watford against Liverpool quarter final fa cup 1-0 win was worth a seasons gate to Watford,did not help in half final against Chelsea losing 1-5.But the goal against Liverpool i will Always remember.
Loic Nego
Piotr Parzyszek
Lepoint
Marcus Bent!!
What has fascinated me is the club-hopping in the latter stages of his career.
Between 2006-2008, he played for Scarborough, Bradford Park Avenue, Stocksbridge Park Steels, Frickley Athletic, Bridlington Town, Emley and Salford City. As well as managing Scarborough, Northwich Victoria and York City.
That is the busiest two years imaginable.