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Best and worst signings


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Though it would be fun to see the different suggestions for best and worst signings under our previous managers. I’ll get the ball rolling. Purely off the top of my head, and many are probably forgotten:

 

Monk. Too early but I’ll try anyway.

Worst: Shotton

Best: Britt, although special mention to Christie

 

Karanka:

Worst: Tiendalli

Best: Clayton (as I don’t think Ayala was signed by him)

 

Mogga:

Worst: Haas

Best: Leadbitter for his sheer importance

 

Strachan:

Worst: Lee Miller

Best: Barry Robson

 

Southgate:

Worst: Dong Gook Lee

Best: Tuncay

 

McLaren:

Worst: Can’t remember but maybe Hoyte

Best: Viduka

 

I expect to hear a lot of really atrocious names :)

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Hmm. Was sure Hoyte came in before Southgate took over. Who’s mclarens worst buy then?

 

I would say Greening and Wilson for £4m from Utd. Neither really did anything.

 

Actually Reiziger was pretty bad for the outlay.

 

All of Southgate's signings and all of Strachan's were pretty much disasters (notable exceptions being Tuncay, Woodgate and Arca for GS1 and Robson possibly for GS2)

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Going to avoid picking Monk's best and worst, who knows what could happen between now and the end of the season.

 

Karanka

Worst: The worst signing during his reign was definitely Guedioura. But I think in terms of importance and how the manager probably wanted him, you'd have to say Barragan. One of the worst full-backs I've ever seen play for this football club. Honourable mention to De Pena.

Best:

Best: Some very good signings during his reign. Given, Tomlin, Kike, Nsue, Forshaw, Bamford, Stuani, Nugent, Kalas, Ramirez, Negredo, Chambers, De Roon, Valdes... all have had their moments at the club but the most consistent and best overall has to be Clayton.

 

Mowbray

Worst: A couple of stinkers, but Kieron Dyer was a particularly difficult one to stomach. He was a crock, a crock who had long since been past his best and should probably have been plying his trade in the Northern League at this point. Honourable mentions to Andre Bikey and perhaps Frazer Richardson.

Best: Quite a few free agents who came in who impressed for what we were expecting of the team at the time. I always liked Faris Haroun for example, Bart Ogbeche was a funny one but he grabbed one or two important goals too. Joszef Varga did a job, too. I'd have to give the best to Leadbitter, his importance to the side has continued long beyond Mogga's reign. But very honourable mentions to George Friend and Albert Adomah who were also big parts of promotion.

 

Strachan

Worst: For a manager in charge for a year, Strachan's list of bad signings was way too long. It started with Marcus Bent soon after he took charge. The infamous Jay O'Shea of course. Lee Miller who apparently played 10 times for us when I wasn't sure he'd even played one. Andy Halliday turned out to be a great laugh on social media and nothing much more. Nicky Bailey, Kris Boyd. The prize gong has to go to Kevin Thomson though. £2m on a crock who, it turns out, thought he was a lot better than he actually was.

Best: Scott McDonald wasn't bad, I guess? Kyle Naughton was decent as a loan signing. Have to agree with BD on this one though, I was a huge fan of Barry Robson.

 

Southgate

Worst: Signing Jason Euell was not a high point, was it? Justin Hoyte and Didier Digard did a whole lot of nothing, Emnes managed to find his place in the Championship though. Dong-Gook tried, bless him. If Mido was a grounded individual he wouldn't be on this list, problem is he was firmly grounded with all the China Buffet King he enjoyed here. Worst surely has to be Afonso Alves though. Our once club-record signing went from promising half-season to dreadful in 08/09.

Best: Some good ones here, Julio Arca to start with. Winger/full-back turned central playmaker, his vision and passing was a joy to watch at times. Huth and Woodgate brought in to replace the gaffer himself had good times, Woodgate at his best was a joy to watch, not many defenders you can say that about. Luke Young remains the best right-back I've seen play for this club. The prize has to go to the Turkish Delight though, my man Tuncay Sanli.

 

McClaren

Worst: Bearing in mind I only really started watching Boro after the Carling Cup win. So it's very difficult to pick a worst signing. It has to be one of the right-backs, Reizeger or Xavier. Probably have to give the gong to Xavier as his best time at Boro was when he came back from the drugs ban under Southgate.

Best: Jimmy Floyd, Mad Dogatetz, Zenden, Yakubu... but you'd have to say Mark Viduka. God knows what we could have achieved if he hadn't been injured for so long in 04/05.

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Mido was a Southgate buy. Hoyte was a Southgate buy too.

 

Hoyle doesn’t come close to mido who cost us 60k a week whilst sitting on West Ham’s bench. Reitziger was awful. Defender of the yr in Spain then champions league semi finalist. And in between a defender that didn’t track his man didn’t try and looked like a Sunday league player

What about Branco. We thought we were getting a World Cup winner and got an overweight past it journeyman

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Excellent thread BD. I wonder was it inspired by my Fabio comment? Think Wilson has summed it all up very well above

 

Just thought about the large turnover of players through the years and knew I had forgotten so many of them so would like to see who people mentioned. Wilson summed up quite a few players but id like to see THE player that people thought as best and worst.

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Hmm. Was sure Hoyte came in before Southgate took over. Who’s mclarens worst buy then?

 

Didn't McLaren sign Ricketts?  Got to be up there as the worst by any manager, never mind just one of them.  :rolleyes:

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Hmm. Was sure Hoyte came in before Southgate took over. Who’s mclarens worst buy then?

 

I would say Greening and Wilson for £4m from Utd. Neither really did anything.

 

Actually Reiziger was pretty bad for the outlay.

 

All of Southgate's signings and all of Strachan's were pretty much disasters (notable exceptions being Tuncay, Woodgate and Arca for GS1 and Robson possibly for GS2)

 

Very harsh on Greening that. He was a solid lower-half Prem player who was never consistently outstanding, but never that bad and always gave it his all. Wilson was cack mind.

 

Karanka

Best - Clayton

Worst - De Pena

 

Mowbray

Best - Leadbitter

Worst - Dyer

 

Strachan

Best - Bailey

Worst - Killen

 

Southgate

Best - Woodgate

Worst - Alves

 

McClaren 

Best - Mendieta

Worst - Ricketts

 

Robson

Best - Juninho

Worst - Okon

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Was Okon that bad? Seem to remember him being ok but granted didn’t see many games and the info back then wasn’t as easy to come by as now. What was the name of that other Brazilian that came with high expectations apart from Branco? Ricardinho I think? Think he scored on his debut but was atrocious overall and out very quickly.

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Was Okon that bad? Seem to remember him being ok but granted didn’t see many games and the info back then wasn’t as easy to come by as now. What was the name of that other Brazilian that came with high expectations apart from Branco? Ricardinho I think? Think he scored on his debut but was atrocious overall and out very quickly.

 

Ricardinho never made an appearance for us.

You're probably thinking of Fabio (not the current one), who played once, got man of the match and never appeared again.

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Alves wasn't as bad as people make out.

 

He also scored a hat trick against Man City, not many Boro players can say that now!

 

Monk: Not saying as it's only November but early candidates for best signing are Randolph, Braithwaite and Christie.

 

Karanka

Best: Ramirez, despite everything that happened in the Premier League. We wouldn't have been promoted without him.

 

Worst: Got to be Guedioura, although not sure how much AK had to do with actually signing him.

 

Mowbray

Best: Leadbitter without a shadow of a doubt. Friend a close second.

 

Worst: Christ, any of the numerous loan signings. I'll say McEachran though because he was a huge disappointment given what we'd all heard about him.

 

Strachan

Best: Errrrrr.....Barry Robson I guess. At least he had passion for the club.

 

Worst: Too many to list. Kris Boyd.

 

Southgate

Best: Hard to say, probably Woodgate or Huth. I'll go for Huth as Woody was injured. A lot.

 

Worst: I can't bring myself to say Alves. Jason Euell. Just...why?

 

McClaren

Best: Yakubu. Got to be, hasn't it? Or Hasselbaink. Or Southgate. Or Zenden. Or Boateng. Jesus, what a time that was.

 

Worst: You could argue that Maccarone didn't score as many goals as he should've, but for THOSE two goals alone he's safe from the worst spot. Michael Rickets however, was bloody awful.

 

Robson

Best: Juninho. Hands down the most exciting player we've ever had at the club in my lifetime. So what if we were poorly defensively because of him being in the team, he was sheer class and made us exciting to watch. A close second would be Uwe Fuchs, legendary loan signing who essentially got us promoted way back in 94/95.

 

Worst: Robson made his fair share of poor signings, but the worst has probably got to be Branco. World Cup Winner who arrived massively overweight, waddled around the pitch and basically never looked fit in his few months here.

 

Probably missed out some players that I just couldn't remember but what the hell!

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