We've had plenty of rubbish players, but this is more about which players disappointed you, as when they signed you had high hopes (due to the fee or their reputation), but for one reason or another, they never lived up to your expectations. A lot of the RD signings (e.g. Polish Pete, Le Point) are excluded as I'd never heard of them, or had low expectations, ditto many the players we signed when broke like Simon Church and David Mooney
Picking 10 players from memory
Bradley Allen - at last a goalscorer, just what we needed in spring1996 to fire us to promotion. A QPR fan I worked with at the time was quite sad he had left. Instead it would be Super Clive a year later would be the star striker
Neil Redfearn - Barnsley's star player the previous season, our first £1m player, but never really fitted in
John Barnes - at the end of his career, and it showed. I struggle to think of any memorable moments from him
Francis Jeffers - someone who started his career brightly, then was poor for the next 15 years. At the time we signed him, everyone thought the dip in form was just temporary...
Dennis Rommedahl - an underwhelming spell with us really, for a guy with 126 caps and 21 goals for Denmark. Did score that goal though!
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - a disinterested shadow of the world class striker he had been at Leeds and Chelsea
Luke Varney - another expensive striker to flop
Izale McLeod - another expensive striker to flop
Simon Makienok - just what we needed, a massive target man, the perfect physique to play in England, and being Danish should have no language/cultural problems either. Sadly he was yet another striker failure
Nicky Ajose - after all those foreign flops, at last we were signing domestic players. 24 league goals for Swindon the previous year, he'd be the 2016/17 "Super Clive"...maybe he'll still come good...
Honourable mention to Danny Murphy, who was disappointing in his first season, excellent for 2/3 months, then had a strop
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Comments
Makienok-As you say he was exactly what we needed. And you saw in fits and starts that he had really good technical ability. It's just we brought him in at a time when Igor was always injured, KAG was relied upon far too much, and then we had Tony Watt who wanted to take up similar positions. And he was left playing up front on his own in a team desperately lacking creativity in midfield.
Bergdich - He joined us after playing for Genoa in Seria A. It's one of those good signings on paper but clear indication that we do not/did not do thorough enough scouting because he never settled and seemed to hate his time here. And he was absolutely awful. See also, Ba, El-Hadji.
Cristian Ceballos - Showed in pre-season what he is capable of. He'd been living in London for like three years before joining us and was apparently a Phil Chapple recommendation. The little I saw of him before he got hurt at the start of 2015 I thought he looked quite tidy. But then that bad injury and never seemed to get back on track. Would have liked to have kept him this year.
Theirry Racon - Had a lot of technical ability, but was either injured or not trusted in his preferred holding midfield role. Had been at Guingamp with Drogba and Maluda. Another one where the ability was there and we didn't get it out of him.
Reeves* - So far he has come nowhere close to showing his ability. He is a really technically gifted player who can produce something from nothing (see his pass on Saturday for Zyro's goal) and he works hard and is really good at finding pockets of space. But he's yet top put in a complete performance with maybe the exception of Bury away. He has not been helped by not having a pre-season (his fault), injuries (not his fault), and being played on the right and having to cover Solly (not his fault). He should be exactly the type of player we need to break down packed defenses, but he is yet to show that.
For me Varney and McCleod at the time felt like the typical signing from the lower leagues where they've scored goals a division of two below, but that doesn't always translate.
Andy Jones
That said at West Ham away he was superb and orchestrated a crucial win although hr almost needed to be carried off the pitch. I would go as far as saying it was one of the best displays I have ever seen from an Addick.
He just turned up at sparrows lane pulled in at the car park and assumed he was in our starting 11 until real Madrid come in.
Dennis Rommedahl
Francis Jeffers
Neil Redfearn
Nicky Ajose
Lee Novak
Simon Walton - He was really highly rated when we signed him from Leeds and was meant to be a star for the future. He is now playing in the conference at the age of 30.
Yassin Moutaouakil - France U21 captain, Barcelona, Celtic, Lazio, Aston Villa and Everton all supposedly chasing his signature but he chose us instead, as you would. Rabona flick to set up a goal against Scunthorpe and generally very impressive in his first couple of games, but then got injured and became more interested in Harry Arter's mum. All went down hill from there, drifted down the leagues to Hayes and Yeading. Now a personal trainer -https://www.puregym.com/personal-trainer/yassin-moutaouakil/ - possibly offering a discount if you bring your mum along to your first session.
I saw him play many times in the Champions League after he left us and he always looked a solid player. Maybe had a mistake in him at the level but certainly had enough ability to have been a good signing for us.
He's good, very good, but JDS seems to be the only player on the same level as Fosu is.
Reza Ghoochannjhad - Clearly had skill, clearly wasn't physical enough despite being "one of the strongest players" at the club.