When your manager spends £475,000 on a player from the Belgian second division, you’re just desperate for him to have unearthed a gem, aren’t you? For every Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, however, there’s a Mauricio Solis. Or a Daniel Cordone. Or a Didier Domi. If any of those names elicited any kind of cognitive response, this blog might be for you. Here begins the Top Fifty Forgotten Imports, in no particular order.
NB – The point of this (if there is one…) is not to highlight poor signings, but just to prompt that “oh yeah!” moment when you suddenly remember a player you’d long since committed to oblivion. If we succeed in doing that just once… then it’s probably all been a waste of time overall. Twenty would be about par…
50. Gustavo Bartelt (Aston Villa on loan, 2000)
The one-time £5m Roma striker joined John Gregory’s Aston Villa on loan in February 2000, but he failed to live up to expectations and left without appearing in the league at the end of his loan spell. His manager, now a largely forgotten man on these shores himself (coaching a mid-table Israeli club the last we heard) at least came up with a memorable summary of Bartelt’s time at Aston Villa, saying “When it’s foggy and he still comes to training with sunglasses on the top of his head, you start to think, ‘hang on a minute…’ and he will not be staying with us, no.”
Negouai was massive, but sadly shit
49. Christian Negouai (Manchester City, £1.5m in 2001)
The giant French utility man joined City from Belgian side Charleroi in 2001, scored with a clear handball in his second game against Rotherham, got sent off in his third against Blackburn, and added just three more league appearances in his four years on the Citizens’ books, during which time he also missed a drugs test while picking up his mum from the airport. He joined Standard Liege on a free transfer in 2005. It was Kevin Keegan who signed him, by the way.
48. Nicola Ventola (Crystal Palace on loan, 2004)
Internazionale’s 26-year-old striker arrived at Selhurst Park while the club was still basking in the glow of an unexpected promotion. Ventola was a player who had long battled with the burden of ‘potential’ in Serie A, and having guided Palace from the Championship relegation zone to play-off success, Iain Dowie was confident he could make the most of Ventola’s natural ability in his battle to keep the club up. In the end, Palace went down and Ventola’s season was ruined by injury, but he did manage a goal in a vital game against Southampton. That moved a talkSPORT caller to declare “When that went in, I would have had his name tattooed on my penis,” prompting the lightning response from the host, “I think you’ll have to make do with the initials.” Ventola now plays for Novara in Serie B.
47. Peter Degn (Everton, £200,000 in 1999)
Walter Smith’s primary objective as Everton manager may have been to keep them in the Premier League, but that doesn’t excuse some of the poorer aspects of his tenure. Smith spent four years boring Goodison crowds and making signings like the clearly overweight David Ginola and a clearly… well, Paul Gascoigne. The Scot’s reign of the predictable did yield one unexpected manoeuvre, however, snapping up the promising Danish winger Peter Degn from AGF Aarhus. Things didn’t work out for Degn at Smith’s footballing graveyard, however, and he spent most of his two years at Everton in the reserves, appearing in the league just four times as a substitute. He did start one game, however, playing the full ninety minutes as Everton were humiliated by Oxford United in the League Cup. Paul Stretford, now Wayne Rooney’s agent, was responsible for convincing Smith to sign the unfortunate Dane.
Kavelashvili wasn't as good as Kinkladze
46. Mikhail Kavelashvili (Manchester City, £1.4m in 1996)
You’ll all remember Georgi Kinkladze at Manchester City, but for a brief time he wasn’t the only Georgian at the club. Mikhail Kavelashvili joined City from Alania Vladikavkaz on deadline day in 1996, with the club in serious danger of slipping out of the division. The Georgian international striker was brought in to fire City to survival, but while Kavelashvili was difficult to spell, he proved not so difficult to mark, scoring just two league goals as City went down on the final day. Citizens who remember him recall that Kavelashvili was a tidy player but something of a waif, perhaps lacking the stomach for the fight of English football. After failing to make an impression in Division One, he joined Grasshoppers of Zurich on loan and never returned. Kinkladze signed for Ajax for £5m.
