Ranking Everton' 21 weirdest signings of the Premier League era

I found this link timely regarding all the commenting on the quality of Everton's signings.

If nothing else, it will evoke some horror memories...

Someone recently gave me a signed team photo from the Walter Smith era once the likes of Collins and Dacourt has been sold. It's the stuff of nightmares. Among others, there was Nyarko, Alec Cleland, Mark Pembridge, Alexandersson, Joe Max Moore, the keepers were Simonsen and Paul Gerrard.

We've had a lot of shite to be fair!

I agree, Danny, I was surprised to see Unsie on the list but he's only there because of the odd circumstances of that one transfer fiasco which occupied maybe one month of his otherwise very solid Everton career spanning 20 or 30 years man and boy.

Good calls on Gardner and Nash. Odd-ball stand-in goalies seem to be a recurring trend...

I can't believe they missed Júnior who was with us for an incredible four years spread over five seasons and played just half of one game... Arrrgh!!!

1) Lacina Traore
2) Guilleme Plessis
3) Eddy Bosnar
4) Sander Westerveld
5) Espen Baardsen
6) Ian Durrant
7) Marc Hottiger
8) Peter Beagrie (1998 version)
9) Peter Dean
10) Ibrahim Said
11) Anthony Gardner
12) Brett Angel
13) Li Weifeng
14) Mark Hughes
15) David Ginola
16) Anderson Da Silva
17) Henry Onyekuru

18) Stefan Wessels

19) James McFadden (2012 version)

20) Alessandro Pistone (2 months after his initial release)

21) Alex Nyarko

Just my list of the weird and not so easy to work our signings, could have listed a million more let's be honest.

There's been many a weird signing.

Carlo Nash. Terry Phelan. Idan Tal. Gareth Farrelly. Brett Angell.

I quite liked Terry Phelan.

Brought in after the long term injury to Hinchcliffe I thought he did a good job for us Terry and if memory serves me right I recall he became a bit of a fans' favourite early in 1997.

Gareth Farrelly, I know he scored that goal against Coventry but my god, talk about shovel-foot shot.

I actually thought some players in the '90s got unfair criticism and another who was probably better appreciated outside Everton was Earl Barrett, a good solid full-back on his day but came in for stick.

Mitch Ward and Carl Tiler were just “Why?” signings too.

Bakayoko was a nightmare and failed dismally.

Madar was all about the Kop End sitter; despite doing some other decent things, that's the one abiding memory I have of him.

Remember John Spencer?

John O'Kane?

We have made some shite signings over the years, we have.

Joe Royle gave Claus an excellent contract... God only knows why, Joe said he'd had his eye on Thomsen for the previous two years, that eye was definitely Joe's weak spot: whatever happened to Claus?

Odd to see Rhino on the list – he had some very good seasons.

And Jim's list includes Onyekuru, which I would call a premature verdict.

Claus Thomsen – OG in the Derby, right? Per Wikipedia, he went back to Denmark, then on to Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.

Paul Holmes was a pretty terrible buy.

Gary Rowett was also a strange one although he did oka elsewhere.

More recently, Senderos came and went.

I also had high hopes for Paul Gerrard who was also terrible.

Danny Williamson

Still, signing players you have no intention of playing could happily be called weird indeed.

Does the signing of not-very-good, not-very-needed Klaassen count as weird in hindsight?

Onyekuru makes it because it's just become a plain weird move, he's our player and has been for some time but shows no sign of ever being able to play for us.

CoCo the Clown?

Joao Silva

Fransico Junior

Magaye Gueye

Lars Jacobson

Tommy Johnson (bet everyone forgot about him in 1999)

The most in-Brazilian of Brazilians ever.

Stracqualursi?

We must be the only club to have signed two South American cart-horses.

Marcel Brands will never let this happen again, hopefully!

Surprisingly, it paid actual dividends on the pitch, it was in the dressing room where things supposedly went sour.

Only overshadowed by someone thinking that Relegation Roberto was fit to manage our club.

And then, someone thinking that the name Everton should ever, ever, ever be in the same sentence as Sam Allardyce. The darkest days in our history.

Cost us ٢.5m in 2005 which was a fair amount in those days, particulary for this club back then, and he did absolutely nothing here.

Always looked sweating whenever a camera panned on him but I never knew why as he was totally anonymous in every game he played for us. I recall a crescendo of boos coming his way when he was subbed in one game (I think against West Brom).

He got completely hammered on phone-ins throughout his time here which wound up his chief apologist, Barry Horne, then of Radio City.

Fuck knows why Moyes bought him. He was simply awful and really was a weird signing considering we'd just finished 4th and were hoping for a Champions League campaign. Davies was never going to get us there. Surely we could have attracted better players than him at the time??

Nayarko wasn't an odd signing, he came as a very good player from the French league. He had a few very good games for us before his head went. The guy clearly had problems, but they don't detract from the actual talent he had and the glimpses he showed of it.

Drenthe was a failure for all the reasons that were evident to anyone who knew about him before he came. He was a bad boy with a bad attitude. Moyes didn't do any homework there at all. You'd have thought he'd learn his lesson after buying the similarly washed-up Van der Meyde.

Moyes's worst signing was Krøldrup. How you can be a centre-back, and sign a centre-back who can't head the ball – I don't know. Surely you'd want to know he could defend set pieces well and would have asked for the tapes on that too. Even if you had no reason to question his heading ability.

That time Moyes was throwing the ball in the air to him like a dad to a 5-year-old was one of the biggest "What The Fuck?" moments in Everton history (Premier League era at least).

We signed him because he could be very good. Sure, it very worked out, and you might consider him a flop, but he was not an odd signing.

I can't agree, mate, I thought he was a very strange acquisition. He never really stood out at Tottenham for me and we already had better players at the club at the time who played in the positions he played in.

He was totally ineffective in the centre of midfield and didn't have any pace or trickery to play out wide, and he couldn't tackle a Sunday dinner.

He was quickly surplus to requirements and that's why Davies was shipped out within 18 months.

I can only ever think of Dacourt in 1998 and it's up for debate whether he was a true success at Everton after spending one (very ill-disciplined) year with us.

Moyes worst ever year was 2005 in the transfer market.

What promised Scott Parker, Craig Bellamy amongst others, delivered Per Krøldrup, Simon Davies, Shandy Van der Meyde and a few other washed-up players.

Sadly Gareth Farrelly is a ‘hero' to me due to his last day goal (against Coventry?)

We were struggling to score goals but needed to score to stay up and he scored a peace. It effectively kept us up (despite a howler from Steve Simeonson in Goal)

Yes, a lot of crap has worn the Royal Blue and you can understand why fans here are impatient

Jim #29

That made me laugh!

(And it's probably true!!)

Mark Pembridge and Niklas Alexandersson don't deserve to be on the list, they were above average during a dismal era.

Ian Durrant, who arrived on loan from Rangers with Duncan Ferguson, was a very good midfielder recovering from a serious injury and certainly shouldn't be included.

Gazza was of course way past his best, but he nevertheless provided some good entertainment and I fondly remember the only goal he scored for us, at Bolton.

After an impressive loan spell the previous year, fans were clamouring to sign him up but through a combination of Davey dithering and the player just completely dicking us around, he signed for Valencia that summer.

Making no impression there, we got him back on loan for the final dozen games of the next season. Plain weird.

Also generally weird was signing Tommy Hitzlsperger for a few games, a couple of years after it was clear he was finished at the top level. I think he was a free agent at the time and not terrible at all but weird of the club to take such a short term punt for no apparent reason.

One is a former winger of Roma and the other is currently assistant manager at AC Milan. Pop quiz: who remembers the story and their names?

Shani Tarashaj (the Swiss wonderkid)
Araz Abdullayev (the Armenian wonderkid)

Hughes, Gazza and Ginola were on their final pay cheques.
Though in the season just before Moyes took over, I recall that Gazza was showing flashes of brilliance (at least one match winning goal) over a stretch of games. and it was comical, that opposition were exchanging their shirts with him, to the point that the club had to put a stop with him.
When Moyes came in, Gazza was shown the door.

Rodrigo was actually showing promise, until he was badly injured. He was on loan, so by the time he recovered, the loan period was over.

Lucas Neill was also an odd one, he was with us from September to January on a free til we sold him for about 𧺬k. Remember he played in the 3-3 at Chelsea with Heitinga at centre half.

Not saying he was bad, but a weird signing!

It was the beginning of the end to a fabulous team of Heath, Sheedy, Stevens, Steven and Bracewell sadly ☹️. When you're at the top, you need to keep buy the best. United made a dynasty of it since, we rummaged around in the bargain bin.

Gazza ran the midfield on a few occasions without being able to actually run and if Ginola could have learnt to cross the ball more and not showboat, same goes for Beagrie, we could actually have done something good.

But that was a prime example of Everton living in dream land. Oh those were dark days..

Walter Smith. No plan, no money, no team. Just waiting for the magic to simply happen, gambling on a few old men.

Still 10 times more enter than last season.

I was one of those who was genuinely excited when we signed Gazza, at 33 years of age I thought we could have got at least one more glorious years from him.

In hindsight the one we missed out on the gem at 36 years young Gary McCallister, who went to Liverpool and well we know how that went.

Ginola looked amazing on his debut against Arsenal in February 2002, I recall he hit the post with a trademark free kick and reigned in quite a few shots but it soon went downhill.

Have we ever signed one of these “wonderkids” from abroad and they actually proved any better than a lad playing on the Sunday league pitches?

I'm glad I didn't see it last night before turning in: it would have given me a sleepless night!

I think there is a huge difference between the topic of the post – 'weird' signings – as to simply recalling bad players we've had down the years.

For example, David Unsworth is on the list and he was excellent in his two spells with us. He makes the list of 'weird' signings because of the weirdness of his transfer out of WHU to Villa then – within days – transferring back to Everton from Villa without, I think, having as much as a training session with the Villains.

He certainly never played for them...

An Interviewer once asked him if the rumours were true that he ate caviar every day for breakfast, Kanchelskis confirmed that he did.

Joe Royle quipped: "He probably means Special K".

I do however remember Claus Thomson who I thought was a good all-rounder; he couldn't defend, attack, pass, shoot, dribble, head, he was all round shite.

As a club we didn't have the money that we do now, which puts in perspective the ott fees we have paid the last 4 years for a number of players who've been very poor.

Hopefully MB will resolve this issue and restore fortune on the pitch.

This thread has given me nightmares. I had forgotten about most of them.

Stefan Rehn coming on as a sub then getting subbed. John Hills falling over the ball with his very first touch, never recovered.

Niasse sauntering on against West Ham Utd with us winning then walking off after us getting beaten.

The older players on that list were all class in their day – just not with us.

A weekly salary (net of income tax and National Insurance payments – the club pays these), appearance fees for being selected to play, bonus for scoring, image rights, agent's fees paid by signing club...

No wonder they can't be arsed on a Saturday afternoon – nobody told them they had earn it!!!

Football – it's fucked.

I had a particular dislike for Abel Xavier who justified my distaste when he signed for the Dark Side. Likewise Nick Barmby. I am surprised to see Pat Nevin and Tony Cottee on some fans' lists, however. Both were great players on their day. Most of the signings made under the mercifully short-lived Koeman regime could be included on that list.

Jesper Blomqvist and David Ginola were also horrendous signings despite being great players at one time because the club was giving "one last season" pensions to almost anyone with a pulse and their own boots. It was the era of:

"What time is the match?"
"What time can you get here?"
"If I get there at 2.30 will I get in?"
"Get here that early you'll get a game!"

Now that we are flush with cash those dark days should be over – but apparently not yet.

I think Gazza was always going to be a gamble drien by desperation. It worked out with Gough, less so with Gazza, not at all with Ginola but I don't think it was a weird signing, just the typical kind of move a struggling club makes.

Mick Madar I thought helped us out with some important goals; Stephen Davies sticks in the mind as he was promoted as a ٢.5 million signing at the time, if my memory serves me right, and, when he left, it turned out he was on loan!

I remember we re-signed Pistone after we let him go, because we had a full-back crisis going into the Champions League Qualifier with Villarreal. If my memory serves me right, he lasted about 10 minutes of the first leg before getting injured, meaning Kilbane had to deputise for him for the 2nd leg. Only Everton!