Most Disappointing XI

[Skyline Drifter]

7 hours ago, Grant228 said:

I'd have Gavin Reilly as captain, ably supported by Paul Burns.

Df- Shaun Rooney, came with big reviews from Queens Park as the next big thing. While being fairly tall he didn't bring much else.
Mf- Paul Burns, not the worst player, just the most out of his depth footballer I've seen play for Dunfermline, he was miles of any standard required for the Premiership, couldn't tackle, dribble or pass particularly well. Very decent at getting knocked off the ball and running around allot.
Mf- Andy Stirling, tore us apart for Stranraer, got subbed on and then off again playing for us.
St-Gavin Reilly, El capitano, apparently had issues at EEP, the biggest one being that he wasn't very good at anything.

Mmm, bit of a common factor running through the Dunfermline side here!

10 minutes ago, palmy_cammy said:

I'm struggling to think of too many for us, but Mark Millar is an undoubted inclusion.  It's fair to say his career has failed to hit the heights of his time at Falkirk, and his fairly rapid decline started whilst on our books.  A shame really, almost certainly his attitude that has cost him a better career, rather than a lack of ability.

I wasn't expecting wonders when we signed John Baird, but he was an established forward at this level and I was happy we had signed him.  His performances weren't too bad for us either and I'm pretty certain had he stuck around he would have proven to be a decent enough player for us.  His inclusion in the "disappointing XI" is due to him spitting the dummy spectacularly, and forcing through his move to Falkirk.  It worked out pretty well in the end as he continued to be a good player for us even after joining Falkirk.  Every game he featured in against us he was such a seething mess that he did the square root of f**k all.  It will be interesting to see if these antics continue when Inverness visit us next month.

A more left-field choice as I really am struggling for ideas is Tom Parratt.  Signed by Gordon Chisholm at a time when we were really struggling to find a right-back, I had high hopes that a man who had won the league with a highly praised Hamilton side and then featured in the top division for them would be a good signing.  I don't recall him being especially awful, but it didn't work out and he was gone within 6 months.

I can't think of anyone else at the minute.  There are probably players we have taken on loan from SPL/Premiership sides that haven't lived up to the hype, although I'm struggling to think of any specific examples.  Experience teaches you that just because a player is on the books of a top division side, it doesn't mean they are top division quality, so even then their inclusion would be unfair.

It looks like Alan Martin will turn it round after an injury-hit introduction to our team.  Unless he turns it around Chris Kane might make this team in 7 months time.

The inclusion of Millar is probably fair. I'd say given we signed him from Peterhead where he wasn't starting every week either, his decline started before us though. Baird is probably a fair shout too.

Without picking a team, there are plenty of names could be thrown in. Ryan Conroy's second spell was pretty underwhelming after a very positive first few games.  Stewart Kean is an obvious example from the Chisholm era. Scored a lot of goals with Ayr and St Mirren but, although he worked hard, he never looked like he was good enough for us. A couple of big English strikers who came with expectations and slunk off back down South with little product would be Steve Preen who Connolly brought in from (I think) Gateshead and Chris Armstrong who Iain Scott paid Rochdale money for. Jim Butter was expected to be a top keeper but really wasn't and we paid a lot of money for him too I recall.

In terms of bigger team loans that turned out to be terrible I'll give you Jamie Mole who came with a lot of hype and was simply awful. If you want to go back a bit further from the same club, Paul McMullan.

[Young gun]

15 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

Gavin Reilly

 

You rang ?

[Shadwell Dog]

Was going to just paste in our team from Saturday but I cant be arsed.

[knee jerk reaction]

Plenty of rubbish in our team over the years but I'd say we've been lucky with more players coming in and exceeding expectations than disappointing.  The player that stands out for me though is Stevie Logan, bought from Meadowbank. A legend there and a player who always looked class against us, I'd been wanting us to sign him for a couple of seasons, he came to brockville and did nothing at all, never looked the same as he did against us.

[Shandon Par]

9 hours ago, Grant228 said:

I'd have Gavin Reilly as captain, ably supported by Paul Burns.

GK-Chris Smith, horrendously error prone, got even worse when he lost weight.

Df- Brad McKay, seemed like we were signing a solid lower half Premiership defender, looked shaky in league one and wasn't a patch on MacCausland.
Df- Shaun Rooney, came with big reviews from Queens Park as the next big thing. While being fairly tall he didn't bring much else.
Df- Jonathan Page, not sure if this really counts, I was under the impression he was alright at Motherwell but just had a bad season at Morton, wrong.
Df- Stuart Urquhart, the worst centre back we've had at the club, left Rangers as a youth to join someone down south, he was howling.

Mf- Paul Burns, not the worst player, just the most out of his depth footballer I've seen play for Dunfermline, he was miles of any standard required for the Premiership, couldn't tackle, dribble or pass particularly well. Very decent at getting knocked off the ball and running around allot.
Mf- Kyle McCausland, scored an absolute howitzer against Stenhousemuir, outwith that he proved he was useless at centre mid and centre back.
Mf- Andy Stirling, tore us apart for Stranraer, got subbed on and then off again playing for us.
Mf- Sorel Chemin, we signed the bloke from PsG and I swear we played him once for about ten minutes, kept trying to shoot from 30 yards.

St-Gavin Reilly, El capitano, apparently had issues at EEP, the biggest one being that he wasn't very good at anything.

St- Moffat-maybe controversial this, I thought his all around play was fantastic, however we brought in the leagues best goalscorer and he just simply couldn't score, confidence went through the floor.

That's a very good/bad selection. +1 from me for this lot. Well remembered. Had blocked most of this lot out. Jimmy Nic and Sandy Clark were a couple of the worst offenders when I was a lad. Whatever talent they'd had was long gone by the time we signed them as players. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

3 hours ago, hoobahabba said:

Surely Guillermo Amor and Sergio Berti have to be in the list for Livi. There was an almighty build up ahead of Amor's arrival. He looked classy in his first game against Patrick Thistle but in our next game against Kilmarnock he was completely outplayed by Stevie Fulton. We never saw him again after that. Berti had similar hype but then spat on Richie Brittain in training and was told to gtf.

The players mentioned so far are definite dross, but if disappointment is the main factor here, these two stand out above everyone else for me.

Yep Amor  was a Barca legend and had won the European  cup and La Liga titles, kinda showed how far he'd dropped from those heady heights when he ended up at Livi though but still a real anti climax for us. Didn't get to see what Berti could bring with him being papped out after the gobbing incident, good shouts though.

[thelocalcat]

GK - Jamie McDonald, looked a great signing on paper but was ultimately the worst keeper we'd had in around a decade
RB - Kieran Duffie, not necessarily his fault but the demise from probably our best full back since Lawrie to becoming a liability was hard to watch
CB - Mehdi Khlais (sp), looked the part until he stepped onto the park
CB- Luca Gasparotto, apparently a player at Morton but he's been rank rotten 90% of the time
LB - Return of Mark Twaddle, quite liked him first time around (was a wee boy might be dumbfounded) paid a fee to bring him back, used to sprint to the halfway line then actively shite himself and turn back
CM - Burton O'Brien, worst life of business I've witnessed
CM - Kevin McBride, not far off Burton tbh
RM - Ryan Flynn, was hailed as a returning superstar but was fairly ineffective
LM - Jack Compton, had bags of quality but ultimately was a bit of a wee fanny who couldn't be bothered
ST - Enoch Showumni (sp), I'd been dying for us to sign a big nutter up top but he was a bit of a gentle giant who only turned up for a few games
ST - Taylor Morgan, I was over the moon when he came of the bench and looked feckin rapid and strong, he kicked the ball a few weeks later

Bench;
Robbie Thomson
Paul Watson
Tony Gallacher
Alex Cooper
David Smith
Roman Wallner
Densil Theobald

[football maniac]

Graham Weir, John Henry, Billy MacDonald, Calum Antell, Leon Knight, Kevin Dzierzawski, Marc McCusker were all guys I had high expectations for but all turned out to be mince or in some cases non-existant. Even George O'Boyle was somewhat of a dissapoitment in that he started off excellent but then his performances dipped before he vanished.

[Skyline Drifter]

54 minutes ago, football maniac said:

Graham Weir, John Henry, Billy MacDonald, Calum Antell, Leon Knight, Kevin Dzierzawski, Marc McCusker were all guys I had high expectations for but all turned out to be mince or in some cases non-existant. Even George O'Boyle was somewhat of a dissapoitment in that he started off excellent but then his performances dipped before he vanished.

Well none of them were really any good. Not sure whether it was fair to expect many of them to be though.

MacDonald never played for us and was registered on an amateur basis to allow him to do rehab with us after suffering what pretty much turned out to be a career ending knee injury in a pre season friendly. Don't think he ever played again at League level. McCusker barely did either and was pretty much finished before MacPherson signed him.

Dzierzawski never remotely lived up to the hype after one good pre-season friendly appearance against Hearts. It was probably unfair of everyone to think he would though straight out of the US college system with no senior football background.  Anyone know if he's still in the UK? Released by Peterhead in the summer but he played in the PFA Scotland summer exit trials so presumably was looking to get another club here. Pretty sure he didn't get another senior one but no idea if he's still in the UK or not. Guess he probably isn't eligible for a work permit if he didn't get an SPFL club.

[smpar]

Through absolutely no fault of his own, I'm sure Alex Whittle was immediately given the reputation of a striker who would easily net 20+ for us. Turns out he was a left back who, quite often, looked like he had never seen a football before, let alone kicked one. Or thrown one for that matter, his throw-ins were fucking hilarious. In fact, didn't they name a drink after him in Tappies in the town? The Whittle bomb or something? That was before he'd even made an appearance.  He improved a fair bit throughout his time at Dunfermline though, and seemed like a decent wee guy. 

Although he has one of the best names in the world, Chigozie Ezi Ugwu probably makes our list as well. The c**t still managed to finish the season as our second top goalscorer despite leaving in January. 

[D.A.F.C]

Hans Segars

We got him on loan from a brilliant Nottingham Forrest side,  even though I was quite young I can remember him making mistakes. It came out later he was up to dodgy betting schemes. One goal he let in was particularly dodgy against Hearts.

Ray Sharp 

During his first spell he was excellent and played for the Scottish u21's. He left for Preston and then came back slow and dirty a while later. Very disappointing. Hero to zero.

Milos Drizic

Ex red star Belgrade player who I'm sure we paid quite a bit of money for around the Kozma era and he only played half a dozen games for us. All I can remember of him is seeing him wearing tights and trying to dribble around in defence. Both of which was never seen in Scotland around that era.

Youssef Rossi

Arguably the most experienced and talented defender we've ever had. Played in the World Cup with Morroco but hooked after thirty mins at park head for being an awful seething mess. Have seen him mark Larsson out he game. Frustrating as he clearly had it.

Greg Shields

Part two again, we cheated Kilmarnock by signing him then going bust a week later. He cheated us by claiming £1500 a week in the championship while getting horsed by part time diddies. Bit harsh but he didn't make a lot of money for the club by transferring to Charlton for a fortune in his great first spell.

Junior Mendes

Fantastic for St Mirren all season, especially against us. Transferred to us and disappeared. 

 

These are are the ones I feel let down by, after lots of hype. Others have mentioned Paul Burns etc but I didn't have big expectations from them. Moffat didn't score that many but his build up or hold up play was excellent.

 

[Russ]

Scott (Butter)Flinders - We signed him on loan from Crystal Palace in 2008. They had signed him for close to £1 million 2 years previous. He was absolutely fucking shite.

Steven Pressley - The best thing he done was get sent off against St. Mirren mensing he was suspended for our final game of the season against Inverness that we needed to win to stay up. He was completely different me by the time we signed him.

Luca Gasparotto - Canadian international signed from Rangers after a decent spell on loan at Morton. He’s fat, slow, immobile with no positional sense. Sooner he’s gone the better.

Joe Chalmers - Scotland under 21 international signed on loan from Celtic so was expecting maybe not a world beater but at least a competent player. He was pish and sent back to Celtic before the end of the season.

Willie Gibson - He was decent but wasn’t close to the player that had destroyed us a few seasons before at Dunfermline. He got subbed at half time in his final game (at home to Raith?) which he then left the stadium never to play again. I’m pretty sure he ended up registering on One F and trying to tell his side of the story why he left. I’m sure I’m not making that up anyway.

Burton O’Brien - signed from Sheffield Wednesday on a reported big wage and a 3 year contract. An absolute shitebag of a player that offered nothing.

Owain Tudor Jones - He was pish for Hibs but had a good spell at Inverness before then. He only played about 4 or 5 games for us before retiring due to injury but by god was he terrible.

Densil Theobald - He was a Trinidad & Tobago international signed in January 2006 before they played in the World Cup. I think he was an unused sub twice before going on to play 3 games in the World Cup and we released him in the summer.

Danijel Marceta - He was ‘lighting up the training ground’ apparently during his first training sessions. He was an ineffective sand dancer and was sent back after only half his loan spell.

Steve Lovell - He had a decent season for us, scored 10 goals and was our top scorer however was expecting a lot more. Injuries had impacted him and he wasn’t the same player that was at Aberdeen and Dundee.

John Stewart - Ok I didn’t expect much but still we spent £50k on him. The only goal he scored was a penalty away to Raith in a cup tie when they were 2 leagues below us. 2 years after leaving us he was playing junior.

Roman Wallner - Austrian international with 27 cpas and only 25 years old when we signed him. Should’ve been one of our best players but he only had 2 sub appearances, a month on loan to Hamilton and was released 6 months after signing.

[quote post="11732197" timestamp="150
RM - Ryan Flynn, was hailed as a returning superstar but was fairly in effective


I think that’s incredibly harsh. Certainly in our first season down Flynn was our best player.

[Highland Capital]

I can't think of enough players to make up a full team but perhaps controversially, I think Marius Niculae was quite disappointing.  Now yes, his skill and reading of the game was very good and he played for Romania at Euro 2008 while he was with us, but for a player of his calibre (he'd been playing for Sporting Lisbon only a couple of years previously and the previous season had been at Mainz in the Bundesliga) he didn't score anywhere near enough for us.  He only spent one full season with us, never really looked fully fit and scored ten goals - two of which were in a League Cup game at home to Arbroath.  For a player of his level we really should've expected about double that amount.

We did manage though (after interest from Hearts, Dundee United, Kaiserslautern, Werder Bremen, Watford and others and bids from Kayserispor and PAOK) to flog him to Dinamo Bucharest  for £250,000 so I guess it kind of worked out.

[The Moonster]

On 30/10/2017 at 18:52, Sonsteam of 08 said:

GK - Mark Brown  - Came to us as a pretty experienced, reasonable enough, lower Premiership 'keeper and showed virtually nothing to suggest he'd ever been anywhere near good enough to play in the league above - never mind Celtic and Scotland B. Going from Danny Rogers to him was some drop.

RB - David Van Zanten - Another guy with plenty of experience at a higher level, he looked pretty much past it by the time he rocked up at the Rock. Seemed like a great guy, but had a habit of diving in too often, was far too slow and beaten too easily. Going from Paul McGinn to him was some drop.

CB - Andy Dowie - Perhaps it's too early to say, but I've been massive unimpressed by Dowie. He was always a pretty decent, no-nonsense Championship centre-back at Queens, but since he joined us he looks like a raging Da' determined to blame everyone but himself, when he's costing us goals AOTS. Sits deep, concedes silly fouls and doesn't strike me as a captain.

CB - Lee Mair - Really just copy and paste the opening sentence from Van Zanten's paragraph. Statistically we were dreadful with him in the team, and that was no coincidence.

LB - Scott Smith - The Scott Smith we had on-loan from Hibernian in the early Ian Murray days was a great player. A solid defender, with a decent left-peg on him. He was such a step-up from James Creaney and Ross Forsyth it was incredible. We were therefore all delighted when he signed permanently in the summer. That didn't last though, as he was a shadow of the player we had on loan. He seemed to get seriously overweight, looked scared to put a tackle in, and we ended up playing a right-footed CM at LB instead of him.

CM - Martin McBride - Signed in the summer of 2011, and then missed a considerable amount of pre-season because he was on holiday. No matter though, I'd seen him play quite a bit for Queen's Park and, after some decent showings in friendlies and a wondergoal against East Fife, I was sure he'd be a star. The fact that 8/10 people who are reading this are away to google him because they don't remember him playing for us tells you how that worked out...

CM - Nicky Phinn (!) - I feel a bit bad here, as Phinn clearly was a good player until injuries absolutely savaged him. Unfortunately when he joined us in Spring 2013 he was a shadow of the player the Pars fans had seen and lasted about nine minutes on every appearance before hobbling off. I'm told he was sensational in training though, which probably explains why we re-signed him.

CM - Scott Chaplain - Chaplain actually had a good record with us, however he should have been perfect having been sensational with Albion Rovers a few years earlier. Unfortunately he wasn't, and he loved a moan on the pitch, so I'm afraid he's punted in here.

ST - Archie Campbell - Was a constant thorn in our side at Morton, a rapid wee guy who was excellent at riling our fans. I was delighted when we brought him in and, despite being rubbish in that hilarious Morton (MorTEN) team, thought he'd be a very decent asset. Aside from causing Peter Houston to explode after rifling one in from 25 yards against Falkirk he was bang average. Worked hard, but was literally woeful in front of goal.

ST - Ross Campbell - A player we apparently tried to sign a couple of times, Campbell smacked in a stunning winner against Partick Thistle on his debut in a friendly. From then on he was near enough invisible and, a winner against Ayr United aside, left at some point without anyone really noticing.

ST - Ally Graham - El Ally Graham as he was christened by the Falkirk fans, was a reasonable squad filler in our promotion season, however he never really looked like an improvement on Bryan Prunty. Scored a lovely solo effort against Stirling Albion, but that aside was pretty disappointing. 

I've probably forgotten a few people here, but I'm sure I'll kick myself for that later on.

We could fill a team with the strikers we've had. I was quite excited when we signed Michael Moore, always seemed to score against us.  He was utterly dreadful and punted in January. Eddie Annand was overweight and past it despite us being told he'd piss our league. Dennis Wyness clearly had a nice touch but every other aspect of his game was finished by the time he came to us. I'm sure more will come to me.

[MrDust]

Gk - I'm gonna go with Ferguson, he probably would be in my top 5 GK but his demise was horrible to see.

RB - Brendan McIntyre, he could kick a ball 80 yards, sure he ended up in the funny shaped ball game in Australia

CH - Davie Sinclair - waste o space

CH- any of the Totten non relegation season

LB - harsh but I'm gonna say Gallacher, I'd had Stuart Munro in there but he had some Ok games and could defend

RW - Kevin McBride... Started there for us, we huffed and puffed to sign him, his debut he huffed and puffed on his inhaler during the game.

CM - Neil Murray - huge waste of space, recall the Clyde 6-1 defeat, wet muddy most players had muck on them somewhere, Murrays white shirts were as clean as when they started

CM - Tom Callaghan....ran about a lot is about as much as you could say

LW- Burton OBrien he was fkin horrendous out there, he was also in CM but he did have the rare no bad game centre mid, I actually could've filled the midfield with both Bob and McBride

CF - Taylor Morgan...had pace for a tall guy, just a pity a ball was involved

CF- Ally Graham snr, couldn't score with  Waddle putting them on a plate

 

[smpar]

16 hours ago, Russ said:

Willie Gibson - He was decent but wasn’t close to the player that had destroyed us a few seasons before at Dunfermline. He got subbed at half time in his final game (at home to Raith?) which he then left the stadium never to play again. I’m pretty sure he ended up registering on One F and trying to tell his side of the story why he left. I’m sure I’m not making that up anyway.

Wouldn't be surprised at all if that were true. Peak Wullie Gibson. 

[The Moonster]

Wullie tried to hunt down BBPF for speculating on his wages when he left us. He's clearly a bampot.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

Wullie tried to hunt down BBPF for speculating on his wages when he left us. He's clearly a bampot.

He somehow managed to find my Twitter, blocked me and started posting cryptic tweets about me  

Absolute loony.

[Broony88]

Surely for Queens Leon Knight has to be mentioned. 

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Broony88 said:

Surely for Queens Leon Knight has to be mentioned. 

He has already been mentioned, but I don't think he should have been.

He's obviously a pretty unpleasant bloke whose career was sliding away when he was with us.  I actually thought he did ok though.  He wasn't here long and didn't deliver goals.  He was lively and capable though.  Brannigan publicly criticised his lack of heart, but I didn't think there was much evidence of that on the field.