Marco Boogered up at West Ham, but many flops have followed in his footsteps

/ Mike Norman / 21 February 2008 / Leave a Comment

Darren Bent, Michael Chopra, Rolando Bianchi... Mike Norman runs though £100m worth of players who just haven't made the grade in the Premiership this season

That Harry Redknapp fella didn't always have an eye for a good bargain you know. Cast your minds back to the summer of 1995 when West Ham United spent around £1m on Dutchman Marco Boogers. The story goes that Redknapp hadn't even seen Boogers play, and the striker was only signed after a few videos were shown to the manager - videos of what we must now ask ourselves.

We all know what happened; Boogers made just two substitute appearances for the Hammers, with the second resulting in a straight red card after a horrific two footed tackle on Gary Neville (so it was justified then). He never played for the club again and went back to his homeland to live in a caravan for a while. I wonder if Thomas Brolin will ever be found camping in Sweden, or whether Franny Jeffers is planning to live at Butlins at some point - just two more of the Premiership's worst ever signings.

The current season has had its fair share of poor signings too - I mean, whoever thought Jose Enrique was worth more than £6m wants sacking! Enrique wasn't the only poor signing however; I can easily name £100m worth of Premiership footballers, who quite frankly, have been major disappointments - so that's £94m to go then.

Tottenham's Darren Bent isn't really a bad player, he's just a terrible signing at £16.5m. He has proved he can score goals at this level, but why pay so much for a player who you are going to use sparingly - whoever signed him wants sacking - sorry, I've already used that line. Bent has scored just three Premiership goals this season (against Boro, Wigan & Derby) and you just can't see him playing often enough to add many more to that tally. No doubt he'd love to play on Sunday, with Spurs being available at [3.9] to beat Chelsea in 90 minutes, or [2.5] to win the Carling Cup outright.

Sunderland have made some decent signings this season, who will all be justified if they avoid relegation, but you would have to say that the £5m they paid for Michael Chopra and the £3.5m they paid for Greg Halford now looks bad. Chopra became an instant hero at the Stadium of Light when he scored a last ditch goal against Spurs on the opening day of the season, but he's only added two more goals to his tally and doesn't look good enough at this level. Halford made just eight league appearances for the Wearsiders and is now out on loan at Charlton. Sunderland are going in the right direction, and they are now out to [6.6] to be relegated.

You have to admit that West Ham have been the unlucky team. They spent over £26m on four players (Craig Bellamy, Kieron Dyer, Scott Parker & Julien Faubert), yet all four have had bad injuries that have prevented them from playing most of the season. Does this make them bad signings though? Well £26m for decent players that aren't playing, I'd say yes - but let me know what you think. Would the Hammers be any further up the table if they had a fully fit squad? They are still available at [10.5] if you think they can put a run together and reach the top six.

So that's around £50m of poor Premiership signings - where's the other £50m coming from? Let's start with Rolando Bianchi who cost Man City £8.8m - he's now back playing in Italy. Or we could start with Marlon Harewood at £4m - he hasn't started a league game for Villa yet. And what about poor David Nugent, who cost Portsmouth £6m - he was so bad they tried to sell him as soon as he arrived. At least these clubs are still fighting for a UEFA Cup slot, so it's not all bad. To finish in the top six, Man City are available at [2.72], Villa at [1.95] and Portsmouth at [4.1].

So I'm still about £30m short. How about Mido (£6m) at Boro, Diomansy Kamara (£6m) at Fulham, Alan Smith (£6m) and Joey Barton (£5.8m) at Newcastle and Emerse Fae (£2.5m) at Reading - all have turned out to be poor signings in my opinion. As for the final £3.5m, I'll put up Derby's not so prolific striker Robert Earnshaw - now, whoever signed him really does want sacking!