Worst Outgoing Transfer Ever?

[Danish]

Its sad remembering all the talented player's we've had through the years who left for peanuts, the player's who got away and the rubbish we signed on big contracts.

The signing of Chris Woods was a mistake in my mind. 1.3 million was a MASSIVE amount of money at the time and he wasn't worth the value. An England international some might say but to me he was pretty average.

Losing the cup finals in 93 hurt, Tricky Trev breaking up the best team I have ever seen at Wednesday over the next few years hurt more. The 93 team needed tweeking not destroying.

[Guest NorthStandOwl1]

LEON CLARKE

[Guest Stereophonics]

Sedloski, Stefanovic and Trustfull

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

We sold Kovacevic for 2.5m, who a year or so later went for 18m.

Darko was an absoloute Gold Mine who had enough to become a legend, pace, touch, finishing ..... Pleat did well out of his leaving errrrmmmmm if you know what I mean.

[theowlsman]

Brunt & DiCanio for me.

Can't really argue with that mate

[lesbarbeux]

Surely, one of the worst transfers would be that of a player called John Hickton, who went on to score over 190 goals in 500 hundred appearances in a ten year career at Middlesborough. What a set of wallies.

John Hickton...........moved from fullback to centre forward......how he kept on scoring for Middlesboro' beggars belief, yes he was certainly a tryer but he was the only 6 foot plus player I have known that reached a hieght of 5'10" when he jumped! Scored a few goals for us but missed sitter after sitter. I remember walking down to the lane for a derby game and we caught up with him near the bottom of the moor and walked the rest of the way with him....fair play to him for not being up his own rear end and taking the time to talk to us (Derek M. do you remember that?). We came out with all the old cliches about Joe Shaw and how he passed back to the keeper at every opportunity and he said he had never seen him! I'm sure he scored that day, so then of course we 11yr olds thought that we had "done our bit!"

Edited April 11, 2012 by lesbarbeux

[Geedee]

Not standing by Di Canio after his push and ultimititely forcing him to leave for nowhere near what he was worth. We lost our best player and didn't get enough cash to be able to replace him.

100% Agree with the above

A disgraceful decision taken for selfish political reasons and obviously not taken in the interests of swfc

[torryowl]

Then presumably you will also remember Dave Cusack leaving for Southend (I think) citing our lack of ambition as his main reason for going!

i always thought cusack left coz he'd lost his place to mark smith ,for him to say the club lacked ambition when they had appointed jack charlton as manager doesnt ring true .(thats cusack not you mate ).charlton more likely got rid to get the money to sign mick pickering(1 month later ) who was a far better player .

[LaughtonOwl]

Carlton Palmer for me. The way he broke up play and then created space in midfield for John Sheridan was never replaced... Ian Taylor was his replacement I think... and he was never given a chance either!!

[DJMortimer]

Darko was an absoloute Gold Mine who had enough to become a legend, pace, touch, finishing ..... Pleat did well out of his leaving errrrmmmmm if you know what I mean.

Really? Never heard that suggestion before. Almost nothing surprises me about this rancid business anymore though.

[MartinOwlMan]

Not strictly a transfer but big Ron leaving for Villa was the beginning of the end.

I can't agree with this one little bit. BFR only signed what he called "big" players who were coming to the end of their careers and made us look good for a while but it was not going to be sustainable.

I agree with the OP regarding Petrescu. It still makes me foam at the mouth to this day to remember David Pleat on TV the following summer (how does such a boring git ever get a job summarising on TV?) during his coverage of a Rumania game saying Petrescu is the best in the workd at that position... SO WHY DID YOU LET HIM GO THEN???

Also Hirst and Sheridan for their iconic status, Lee Chapman because we never got out £600k and Roland Nilsson and Paolo Di Canio because companies should never lose such valuable assets for nothing.

Edited April 11, 2012 by MartinOwlMan

[DJMortimer]

I agree with the OP regarding Petrescu. It still makes me foam at the mouth to this day to remember David Pleat on TV the following summer (how does such a boring git ever get a job summarising on TV?) during his coverage of a Rumania game saying Petrescu is the best in the workd at that position... SO WHY DID YOU LET HIM GO THEN???

Because Petrescu's agent stormed into his office one day and said Chelsea will double (might have been triple - but can't remember now) his wages, so what are you going to do about it. Not being able to compete with that kind of 'negotiation', the club had little choice.

Edited April 11, 2012 by DJMortimer

[Guest bully87]

glenn whelan...500k to stoke. He's still there....and udders want 4 million for rhodes. wonder what stoke value him now.

Moving on, all these players we let go that we never got true worth for is because at that time we were not a desirable club, we had debt so couldn't match players career aspirations, best we could hope for in prem was europe finish and win a cup but we never did we turned into a mid table team that wasnt going to attract quality players to keep the likes of di canio carbone and so on so if we did keep them we wouldn't afford more players of their ilk. Pleat did mess us up.

Hirst should have seen his career out with us. Didnt deserve to get palmed off to Southampton

[malek]

The summer of 1994 was when it began, but for four or so years it could still have been rectified.

Crap, just when I started supporting Wednesday...

[DJMortimer]

Crap, just when I started supporting Wednesday...

Oh; so it's your fault is it?

BOOOOOO !!!!!!

[scram]

My thoughts exactly, to be honest how do you defend a player that lays hands on a ref?...I know Alcock made a fvckin' meal of it, but you don't do it. Di Canio wanted out, he should have turned up to play against Leicester if I remember correctly, he did not show, the blokes a footballing genius, i loved watching him play, but I remember him throwing a ball at a Linesman, I think was against Watford, sent off....3 weeks in fvckin' Roma....he was calculating when he wanted to be....."aww let me off... look at me i'm mental"...

You know who I was sad to see go? Marc Degryse...i thought he was a very underrated player for Wednesday

TBH i don't think i've ever seen anybody trying to defend PDC's actions - it was the aftermath and the embarrassingly weak performance from the small men at the club - especially Wilson and Richards.

And we like to go into overdrive about the horror of what happened that day and how incredibly dreadful it was to lay hands on a ref - well it was the THIRD occasion in the premier that season - Manu Petit was one, and David batty pushed David Ellery - and for that heinous crime received an extra ONE match ban for pushing the ref on top of the FIVE matches he was banned for amount of reds/yellows that season

Let's just repeat that - David Batty received a one match ban when he already had so much form he was being banned for 5 matches for offences that season - thats how much the FA thought of it before Di Canio

I firmly believe that our immediate reaction after the game with that muppet Wilson basically hanging the bloke on live TV was the template from which the FA took their approach - WE made it into the MASSIVE issue it became.

If we had handled the situation (and player) with something approaching some sense and tact then the following wouldn't have happened in my opinion

We cast the man out, stripped him of his wages and started blubbing when he basically said "**** you" to the people who had disowned him.

Now, whatever anybody thinks of that situation and whether he was a fit player to wear our shirt or not - the very least we should have done was to protect him as a valuable asset and not hideously decrease his value.

Might be semantics but in the Watford game he got a 2nd yellow for contesting a nothing throw in near their corner flag - when the lino gave it to them he got up close to the lino's face and remonstarted then put his hands round his eyes as if wearing goggles - he didn't sling the ball at him

Edited April 11, 2012 by scram

[DJMortimer]

Absolutely right Scram.

The chairman and manager resorted to that old bullsh*t about 'love of the club' to alienate Di Canio. Unfortunately they also used the man's character against him, knowing that he would have an almighty strop if they gave him enough provocation which would do their work for them. It was dishonest, self-serving and cynical. And it's shameful that no matter how many times these tactics are employed, some supporters continue to fall for them.

Even those who wanted to boot Di Canio down Penistone Road and out of the county should at least admit that the club were hijacked by Richards for his own purposes and that it cost us several million pounds, arguably started the countdown for the departure of our second most talented player a few months later and ultimately led us into the misery we're still trying to recover from.

As for the Watford incident...

[MartinOwlMan]

Because Petrescu's agent stormed into his office one day and said Chelsea will double (might have been triple - but can't remember now) his wages, so what are you going to do about it. Not being able to compete with that kind of 'negotiation', the club had little choice.

I hadn't known that - thanks for clearing it up.

[scram]

Also about Petrescu - he was used as a right fullback by us - and he never excelled in that position - he was probably the most accomplished wing back in the world at that time (when they were popular) - and its how Hoddle used him in Chelsea's 3-5-2 system

Also Romania always had him as a wing back (or wide right in a 4) - but his forte was not defending - and thats what we required him to do most

So not only didn't we get the best out of him by using his more defensively - but we never got him to play to his considerable strengths.

I almost hated Petrescu for going on and being so bloody good after his relatively disappointing time with us

But truth be told he was an extremely high calibre player

[Hawkeye]

what a depressing thread.

i agree with most of the names listed, Kovacevic, Degryse, Di Canio etc

the main two issues for me were not who we sold, but;

a) who we replaced them with

b) that we almost always lost money on them

None of the players listed were unreplaceable, but when you make losses on all of them, and replace them with lesser squad players, you are only going to go one way.. which is exactly what we did..