• Welcome, guest!

    This is a forum devoted to discussion of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
    Why not sign up and contribute? Registered members get a fully ad-free experience!

Wolves worst signings

For varying reasons, generally one of awful value, nonsense reasoning or plain heart of pea shithouse behaviour:

---------------------------Paul Jones------------------------

Kevin Ashley---------Roger Johnson----Rob Hindmarch-----Jelle van Damme

----------------Greg Halford----Tongo Doumbia----Jamie O'Hara

-------------Tony Daley------Leon Clarke------Joe Mason
 
Cheating putting them wide in a three though :D (Jigsaw did play there for us a bit, badly). Could play 4-4-2 with Daley on the left and Quadbike Greg on the right.

Taylor a better candidate than Claridge, we all knew he was overweight, shit and had no resale value. Claridge had a run of clubs for a decade or so and we were the only place where he failed.
 
Last edited:
We didn't pay much/anything for some of these but they're in the XI that's purely down for not trying:

-------------------------------Paul Jones---------------------

Matt Doherty*--------Roger Johnson-----Sebastien Bassong----Jack Robinson

Jermaine Pennant------Darren Ferguson------Darron Gibson-----Rajiv van La Parra

-------------------------Freddy Eastwood------Steve Claridge-----------------------

*Pre-Nuno

Willian Joke was very close there but South Bank Fred pipped him.
 
Don’t think you can put O Hara in there because no one thought it was a bad idea at the time and the fee wasn’t stupid. Even remember a lot of pant wetting on here because it was about the first week in June and we still hadn’t signed him…
 
I'd put Olofinjana in (has there ever been such a bad contrast between one player and his direct replacement?) but we did somehow make money on him.

Eggert Jonsson was incomprehensible as he wasn't even fit for purpose if we got relegated (which we did) but he cost relative buttons.

Atkins was always shit in midfield, stick him in you like. Obvious after one game that all he did at Blackburn was play a simple pass to better players. We didn't have better players.
 
Tim Sherwood was class back then so probably not hard to look decent in that team.
 
Jelle van Damme. Had played in English football for Southampton before, struggled and sold off at a loss after a handful of games. I mean players can mature over time but he turns up here as our new LB (we'd been after a proper one for years, ever since Naylor left)...yeah, he still can't play LB. Was obvious in the friendlies as he kept getting rinsed. Good scouting, lads.

Then we'd also done no research into his personal circumstances, surprise surprise, playing for a shit team in a foreign country while your pregnant wife is back home isn't a very pleasant experience.

At least we got our money back I suppose but it just meant we were back to square one with recruitment in a key area.

On the subject of rubbish scouting, Silas who we'd "looked at for two years". Obviously had plenty of ability. Should we let him settle into English football in his natural position, maybe introduce him gradually, even look to tweak the formation to suit him as he's obviously intended to be an important player. Nah, fuck that. Kennedy is injured so park him at left wing in a 4-4-2. That'll work.
I’m pretty sure I saw Jelle Van Damne score a goal at Fulham? Might be mistaken.

And a decent one too.

And then I never saw him again.
 
Grant holt and marlon bloody harewood
 
I’m pretty sure I saw Jelle Van Damne score a goal at Fulham? Might be mistaken.

And a decent one too.

And then I never saw him again.
Yeah same, back post side foot volley maybe? Think it gave us the lead and we went into lose. Maybe I was influenced by the goal but I vaguely remember thinking he looked half decent and literally never saw a minute from him again and he was gone.
 
You didn't watch us in the 90s or under Hoddle then?

That's why McCarthy's team seemed so fantastic, because for the first time since Turner's side every single one of them would run through a brick wall for one another.
I did. The game I ripped my season ticket up was when he moved Cort to left back to compliment Kenny Miller at right back
 
Who was that bloke from Vienna or somewhere, he was 6' 8" (gonna be great at heading in crosses) ended up running a restaurant in Vienna, and the 2nd one was tallish, black hair, neat beard, Willian or something?
God, they were shite!
 
Who was that bloke from Vienna or somewhere, he was 6' 8" (gonna be great at heading in crosses) ended up running a restaurant in Vienna, and the 2nd one was tallish, black hair, neat beard, Willian or something?
God, they were shite!
Stefan Maierhofer
 
He didn't run a restaurant. He trained as a chef before he turned pro in football. Was still playing as late as last season.

As mentioned Morgan decided we needed a tall striker so we bought one. The extent of our scouting was him playing well against Villa for Rapid Wien a week or two before we bought him.
 
Joe Gallagher deserves a mention. £350k from Blues for a slow centre half was a lot of money then. He was awful, reminiscent of someone similar who we signed 30 years later and we couldn't afford him as we were on our way under the first time. When going into admin, Blues were taken for most of the money as football debts weren't prioritised as they are today. Blues got their own back by selling Wayne Clarke in a joint deal with a duffer called Stuart Storer and diddling us out of a fair proportion of our sell on fee to Everton.
 
In modern times, I’d like to cast a vote for Jesus Vallejo.

Jesus indeed.

He must have some serious dirt on the Directors at Real Madrid because he honestly looked like he’d never played football before.

It was like The Emperors New Clothes……”he’s from Real Madrid, he must be amazing”…….in fact, he was absolutely diabolical.

Forget Mendes, that guy had the best agent on the planet.
 
I know all clubs make their share of signings that don't work out but if you look at our major signings for the first team over the years since our first season in the Premier League where we had a very good summer window I think our hit rate is very poor.

If you look at this list I'd say the amount of players that have either been downright crap or been decent/ok but not value for the money outlayed easily outstrips the good signings we have made.

Cutrone
Podence
Vallejo
Silva
Marcal
Hoever
Semedo
Vitinha
Ait-Nouri
Jose
Sa
Trincao
Hwang


This can't keep going on - if you keep getting recruitment wrong at this level you'll be in massive trouble before very long.
 
Back
Top