What has been our worst transfer decision?

[Smogonsea]

We have had a few bad transfers dealings. But £7m (I think) for Saville has to be up there. Even millwall couldn’t believe we offered it and practically packed his bags for him.

 

[wilkos_perm]

Not selling Gestede to Leeds was insane, buying him after he took a fan to court was equally insane, however you can make a case for hundreds.

Mine would be Charlton not paying the extra £10K to Coventry for David Cross, if he had, I believe we would have won the First Division in 74/75.

Agree about the Leeds bit, but not so much the bit about the court case, i don't think anyone was bothered about that at the time of his signing, the concern was very much around the fact we suspected he was rubbish

 

[festa5]

Horrific! however, at least Aliadiere/Dong Gook Lee (still convinced he had a touch of the ali dia's about him) didn't break the bank. Thats why Alves always gets my vote in this type of question.

Tin hat on time, but I always liked Aliadiere, unpopular opinion i know, felt we never utilised him right. Think he would thrive nowadays playing wide in a 4231/433

The problem Aliadiere had was that he was a non scoring striker. You're always going to get grief for that as a forward.

His all round game was decent though. Intelligent player with pace and good technique. We paid what? £2m for him? Was probably about right at the time. Just didn't have the killer instinct.

As a squad player he would've been fine. Unfortunately ended up as our main man.......

 

[parmoboy]

I think you can make a case for John-Obi Mikel. Signed him at a time when we were already top heavy with midfielders and you can guarantee he would have been on a high wage. We ended up having to play midfielders as wing-backs for a period because our squad was so unbalanced.

Another masterstroke from Pulis, who'd said that the Chairman had already spent enough at the time and he didn't want him to be putting his hand in his pocket.

 

[allied_assault]

Jack Harrison - should have got him back on loan

 

[Anton_Berg]

Letting Robert Huth go after relegation.
Yes his wages would have been PL-sized, but nonetheless it proved to be a false economy.

 

[Borothruandthru]

Michael Ricketts anyone ?

 

[Hazzinho]

Selling Cattermole and Morrison for Digard and O'Neill was shocking.

Also take you pick from the transfer business in the January window during the relegation season and the signings under Monk, abysmal! Fletcher, Braithwaite, Gestede, Assombalonga... Guedioura

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

Don Masson.

 

[S7DiscoDown]

Flint / Savile and Fletcher at 7mil each. That's stunningly bad buisness.

It's not even in hindsight. I think everyone thought we massively over paid at the time.

21mil on that trio. I imagine around 2-3 back at best. That's not a successful buisness model

 

[Funky_Chicken]

Gascoigne - absolute charlatan who hates Boro. He was just mocking us for a kings ransom

 

[gravy173]

Bamford —> Leeds

Then using the money to sign saville for 5 million more than he was worth.

I was done with Pulis from then on, the worst business deal of recent times!

 

[BoroMart]

Similarly, Adam Reach. Essentially swapped him for Carlos de Pena.

Reach was never better than championship quality though

 

[BoroMart]

At least Assombalonga scored goals, without them where would we have ended up ?

We would have played someone else who didn’t fall over give the ball away for 89 mins per game. We would have still been in the championship, maybe have done better as a team, but would have saved approx 23m in transfer and wages.

15m never forget that, that’s an enormous amount for a championship player who never even scored 20 at that level and still hasn’t 6 years later.

That transfer financially screwed us for 7 years

 

[Juninhoburger]

Gascoigne - absolute charlatan who hates Boro. He was just mocking us for a kings ransom

Congratulations on having the worst take in this thread, I guess.

Gazza doesn't hate Boro. He regrets signing for us and not staying at Rangers, but without him we might not have signed Alen Boksic

Boro-bound Boksic takes Gazza's advice

Alen Boksic will today become a Middlesbrough player, thanks to Paul Gascoigne.

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk

 

[iamborome]

I still can't get over the club selling Hughie McImoyle.

 

[Alan_Breck]

One of the Worst, and there are many - Brazilian Branco
One of the Best, and there are few - Italian Branca

#UTB

 

[Alan_Breck]

I still can't get over the club selling Hughie McImoyle.

Hughie, one of my all time favourites. Great striker, tremendous header of the ball, and signed for us twice.

#UTB

 

[jeff_potato]

Too many to choose from. It has to be ones post-relegation because the money fountain runs dry quickly and wasting money seems even more shocking.

Definitely not a bad signing, but in terms of lacking sense I would put forward signing McNair for millions, then hardly ever playing him while Pulis moans about being skint. New manager comes in and surprise surprise, Cilla, there's a reliable player sat there on the bench.

 

[Nero]

A couple of scenarios in my mind immediately:

Under Southgate the club were terrible in replacing Viduka and Yakubu. Those two were the main reasons Boro weren’t relegated initially under Southgate. Unless I’m mistaken they were replaced with Tuncay, Aliadiere and Mido.

The other has to be bringing in Gestede.