Bizarre and Worst Signings

I found this on another forum. What signings do you think were, in retrospect, or even at the time, bizarre?

50 Stan Collymore, Liverpool to Aston Villa, £7m, May 1997

The striker scored just seven goals in 46 league appearances for the club he supported as a boy.

49 Khalid Boulahrouz, SV Hamburg to Chelsea, £7m, August 2006

48 Eddie McGoldrick, Crystal Palace to Arsenal, £1m, June 1993

The Ireland winger was reunited with Ian Wright but could not supply crosses for his former Crystal Palace team-mate as he had done at Selhurst Park.

47 Mark Hateley, Rangers to Queens Park Rangers, £1.5m, November 1995

The England centre forward was a hero in Glasgow but the fans at the other Rangers did not take to him.

46 Darren Huckerby, Coventry City to Leeds United, £4m, August 1999

A world-beater on his day, the forward was not one of David O’Leary’s successes at Leeds.

45 Georgios Samaras, Heerenveen to Manchester City, £6m, January 2006

A lack of goals led to Stuart Pearce’s sacking as manager and the Greece striker was among the chief culprits.

44 Massimo Taibi, Venezia to Manchester United, £4.5m, August 1999

United splashed out in the hope of finding the next Peter Schmeichel, to no avail. The Italian goalkeeper lasted just four months.

43 Titus Bramble, Ipswich Town to Newcastle United, £5m, July 2002

Bramble looked like a future England player when at Ipswich but became a byword for calamitous defending at Newcastle.

42 Fernando Morientes, Real Madrid to Liverpool, £6.5m, January 2005

The striker who helped knock Chelsea out of the Champions League as an AS Monaco player failed to trouble English defences much while at Liverpool.

41 Francis Jeffers, Everton to Arsenal, £8m, June 2001

Signed as Arsene Wenger’s “fox in the box”, he was sold as a donkey in the box at a loss of £5.4m.

40 Michael Owen, Real Madrid to Newcastle United, £16m, August 2005

The English striker has fared reasonably well when fit but injuries mean Newcastle have yet to see anything like a decent return for their money.

39 Chris Kiwomya, Ipswich Town to Arsenal, £1.25m, January 1995

Signed in the dying days of George Graham’s reign and later allowed to leave for nothing.

38 Massimo Maccarone, Empoli to Middlesbrough, July 2002

Views on the Italian range from not picked enough to not good enough. Either way, 18 league goals in four years was a poor return for the striker, who was allowed to leave on a free transfer.

37 Gerry Creaney, Portsmouth to Manchester City, £1m, September 1995

The Scottish striker was a prolific scorer at Portsmouth but misfired at City.

36 Jon Dahl Tomasson, Heerenveen to Newcastle United, £2.5m, July 1997

Played as a striker rather than his more familiar attacking midfield role, the Dane was out of position and out of luck.

35 Ned Zelic, Borussia Dortmund to Queens Park Rangers, £1.25m, July 1995

Blamed the hard English ground for his injuries and quickly returned to Germany.

34 Dean Saunders, Galatasaray to Nottingham Forest, £1.5m, July 1996

The striker who specialised in relegations endured a barren run in front of goal as Forest plunged from the Premier League.

33 Eoin Jess, Aberdeen to Coventry City, £2m, February 1996

An unsuccessful spell at Highfield Road had the Scotsman scuttling back to Aberdeen for a third of the original transfer fee.

32 Paul Furlong, Watford to Chelsea, £2.3m

Chelsea would spend this on a team bus nowadays but it was their record transfer fee in 1994. The striker’s spell was characterised by howlers in front of goal.

31 Ramon Vega, Cagliari to Tottenham Hotspur, £3.5m, January 1997

The Switzerland central defender gave Tottenham fans countless nervous moments.

30 Salif Diao, Sedan to Liverpool, £5m, August 2002

Gerard Houllier, the Liverpool manager who signed the midfield player, compared him to Patrick Vieira. Well, he is tall and from Senegal, but otherwise...

29 Milan Baros, Liverpool to Aston Villa, £6.5m, August 2005

Nine goals in 42 league games was not what Villa had in mind when signing the Czech from Liverpool and they were happy to offload him to Lyons.

28 Faustino Asprilla, Parma to Newcastle United, £6.7m, February 1996

The Colombian was a fine player who enjoyed some good times at Newcastle but his mid-season arrival appeared to unbalance a team that had seemed destined for the Premier League title.

27 Kevin Davies, Southampton to Blackburn Rovers, £7.5m, June 1998

The burly striker is having more luck down the road at Bolton Wanderer but at Blackburn he managed just one goal in a whole league season.

25 Stephane Guivarc’h, Auxerre to Newcastle United, £3.5m, June 1998

The World Cup winners’ medal that the striker collected with France needed to be seen to be believed by frustrated Newcastle fans.

24 Glen Johnson, West Ham United to Chelsea, £6m, July 2003

The first signing of the Roman Abramovich era has still to establish himself four years and one loan spell at Portsmouth later.

23 Corrado Grabbi, Ternana to Blackburn Rovers, £6.75m, June 2001

The Italian striker scored two goals in 30 Premier League appearances. That’s £3.38m per goal.

22 Adrian Mutu, Parma to Chelsea, £15.8m, August 2003

As if six goals in 27 league games was not bad enough, the Romania striker was sacked after failing a drugs test for cocaine.

21 Tore Andre Flo, Rangers to Sunderland, £6.75m, August 2002

Four goals in 29 league appearances by the Norway striker helped Sunderland towards an ignominious relegation.

20 Joey Beauchamp, Oxford United to West Ham United, £1m, June 1994

The Oxford-born winger was so homesick after joining West Ham that he left two months later without playing a competitive game. He returned closer to his roots with a move to Swindon Town.

19 Hugo Viana, Sporting Lisbon to Newcastle United, £8.5m, June 2002

The young Portuguese midfield player spent most of his two years at the club on the bench.

18 Andrea Silenzi, Torino to Nottingham Forest, £1.8m, August 1995

The Italian striker was so poor that Forest allowed him to leave for nothing.

17 Florin Raducioiu, Espanyol to West Ham United, £2.4m, July 1996

Lasted only six months after missing training to go shopping.

16 Sasa Curcic, Bolton Wanderers to Aston Villa, £4m, August 1996

Fell out with Brian Little, the manager, amid accusations of a wild lifestyle off the pitch.

15 Alex Nyarko, Lens to Everton, £4.5m, July 2000

Complained that the English league was too physical. Walter Smith, his manager, appeared to side with the Everton fan who ran onto the pitch at Highbury to confront the Ghanaian over a supposed lack of effort.

14 Ade Akinbiyi, Wolverhampton Wanderers to Leicester City, £5m, July 2000

Known to some Leicester supporters as Ade Abadbiyi, he was lampooned by fans across the country for his desperate misses.

13 Chris Sutton, Blackburn Rovers to Chelsea, £10m, July 1999

The striker was a regular goalscorer with Norwich City, Blackburn and Celtic but never recovered from missing a couple of sitters on his debut for Chelsea, for whom he scored once in 28 Premier League appearances.

12 Jean-Alain Boumsong, Rangers to Newcastle United, £8m, January 2005

Somehow made it into France’s World Cup finals squad last year but Newcastle fans were relieved when the error-prone central defender left for Juventus.

10 Darko Kovacevic, Red Star Belgrade to Sheffield Wednesday, £2m, December 1995

The forward made no impression at Hillsborough but promptly became a prolific goalscorer in the Spanish league with Real Sociedad when he left.

9 Robert Fleck, Norwich to Chelsea, £2.1m, August 1992

The Scottish striker was a cult hero at Carrow Road but a carthorse at Stamford Bridge, where he scored five times in 40 league appearances.

8 Bosko Balaban, Dynamo Zagreb to Aston Villa, £6m, August 2001

The Croatia forward did not start a league game in his two and a half years at the club.

7 Sergei Rebrov, Dynamo Kiev to Tottenham Hotspur, £11.5m, June 2000

The player who formed an outstanding attacking partnership with Andriy Shevchenko at Dynamo Kiev lost his radar after joining Tottenham.

6 Marcelino, Real Mallorca to Newcastle United, £5m, June 1999

Dubbed the “lesser-spotted Magpie”, he played just 17 Premier League games in three and a half years at St James’ Park.

5 Steve Marlet, Lyons to Fulham, £11.5m, August 2001

The Frenchman provided just one goal per five league games, fell out with Chris Coleman over his refusal to play out of position and spent two years on loan to Marseilles.

4 Tomas Brolin, Parma to Leeds United, £4.3m, November 1995

Injury had left Brolin overweight and over the hill but Leeds paid well over the odds for the Sweden striker. He left two dismal years later when his contract was cancelled.

3 Albert Luque, Deportivo La Coruna to Newcastle United, £9.5m, August 2005

One of a host of expensive signings by Newcastle to have disappeared down a black and white hole. The Stevens Inquiry placed a question mark over the transfer and the rest of the world placed a question mark over why Newcastle bought him at all.

2 Valerien Ismael, Strasbourg to Crystal Palace, £2.75m, January 1998

Hopeless in South London, the French central defender has since won the German league and cup double both with Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich.

1 Per Kroldrup, Udinese to Everton, £5m, June 2005

Everton paid a fortune for the Denmark central defender but then showed no interest in actually playing him amid suggestions they had suddenly discovered he couldn’t head the ball. Made one league appearance before returning to Italy.

I've taken out some of the obvious ones. They are less interesting, imo, and more well-known than the ones I've not deleted.

Ronnie O'Brien, who now plays in MLS, moving from Middlesbrough reserves to Juventus was pretty bizarre. Jay Boothroyd to Perugia was perplexing too.

Was Grabbi a good player in Serie A before he left for the EPL? His transfer fee seems, in retrospect, crazy!

23 Corrado Grabbi, Ternana to Blackburn Rovers, £6.75m, June 2001

The Italian striker scored two goals in 30 Premier League appearances. That’s £3.38m per goal.

The Quiet Earth wrote:

36 Jon Dahl Tomasson, Heerenveen to Newcastle United, £2.5m, July 1997

Played as a striker rather than his more familiar attacking midfield role, the Dane was out of position and out of luck.

Good analysis by the writer !

To a job well done

Oi, Marco Boogers no longer makes the list ?

Axeslammer wrote:Oi, Marco Boogers no longer makes the list ?

Don't worry the crazy one makes this list. Wasn't he mentally ill?

1 Tomas Brolin
In Euro 92, England fell to a superb goal from a hugely promising young Swedish striker. Eight years on, the scorer, now a vacuum-cleaner salesman based in Stockholm, could only reflect on a career which went grindingly wrong. Tomas Brolin at his peak was graceful, skillful and captivating. Past it, he was one of the most limited players in world football. The decline set in soon after Euro 92, but apparently went unnoticed by then Leeds boss George Graham, who paid Parma £4.5m for him in 1995. When Brolin arrived looking like Keith Chegwin's tubby twin, Graham was panic-stricken. Brolin made just 19 appearances in two years before his career collapsed amidst a series of training ground walk-outs and dietary rumours. Leeds paid out the remainder of his contract. He returned to England for a final Premiership fling at Crystal Palace in 1998, but, after 13 appearances, was deemed too fat to play, and made assistant manager to Attilio Lombardo when Steve Coppell was moved aside. Palace were instantly relegated - Brolin hasn't been seen in this country since.

2 Ali Dia

The Jeffrey Archer of Premiership imports arrived at Southampton in 1996 after convincing then-manager Graeme Souness that he was a top quality 30-year-old Senegalese striker with 13 international caps, carrying a recommendation from former Paris St Germain teammate George Weah. Plainly, he wasn't - but Souness's curiosity got the better of him. Dia was signed and brought on as a substitute against Leeds. After a superbly inept 53 minutes he was brought off again, and, 14 days after agreeing it, his contract was cancelled. 'I don't feel I have been duped in the slightest,' explained Souness afterwards. 'That's just the way the world is these days.' From Southampton, the japester joined non-league Gateshead, where he was transfer-listed in February 1997. He hasn't been heard of since.

3 Andrea Silenzi

Signed for £1.8m by Frank Clark for Nottingham Forest in 1995, 6'3" Silenzi took just seven full appearances to prove his worth. One of the first 'big name' Italian imports, Silenzi, known as 'the Big Brush', was a picture of disinterest. Earning a then-enormous £30,000 a month, his laid-back control, finishing and approach play soon had management and supporters worried. His only excess was in the length of his first touch. It took just weeks for the deal to look suspect, a month for it to look plain wrong and another to collapse. Half way through his first season, he had lost his place to Jason Lee, was loaned to Venezia, and when told to return by Dave Bassett, refused. Forest tore up his contract - meaning the whole deal, including wages and bonuses, had cost the club £2.75m. He scored twice - one against Oxford in the FA Cup and the other against Bradford in the Coca Cola cup. 'The whole business turned into a complete fiasco,' said Bassett.

4 Michele Padovano

Former Crystal Palace chairman Mark Goldberg, author of the club's recent near-death experience, signed Padovano from Juventus reserves in November 1997 for £1.7m in a typically ill-considered move. Handing the Italian an enormous contract in the hope that gratitude alone would spur him to score the goals to beat relegation, Goldberg touted his newest expensive arrival as the answer to Palace's prayers. In the event, the long-haired, out-of-condition forward scored once, appeared twelve times, and came to embody the club's failings. Utterly disinterested, Padovano never played more than two games in a row, and, after his twelfth appearance, settled contentedly into reserve team football, before leaving on a free to join Metz. He made a brief return visit earlier this year once the club had fallen into the hands of administrators to claim a reported £1m in unpaid wages.

5 Marco Boogers

Harry Redknapp wasn't always the streetwise London gaffer he is today. The arrival of 'Mad' Marco Boogers for £1m from Sparta Rotterdam in July 1995 was just one of a number of misjudged West Ham imports. Coming on as a substitute against Manchester United in only his second appearance for the club, Boogers was almost immediately red carded for 'a sickening horror tackle' (The Sun) on Gary Neville. He promptly disappeared, discovered several weeks later hiding in a mobile home in a Dutch caravan park. The Boogers debacle, which ended in a loan deal and subsequent free transfer to Groningen despite his protestations - 'I'm not mental' - was the worst of a dreadful Redknapp collection: Florin Raducioiu arrived for £2.4m in July 96 and was sold at a £600,000 loss six months later after missing training for a Harvey Nichols shopping trip; Portuguese supermodel Dani lasted five months before being thrown out for excessive nightclubbing; and £2m star Javier Margas went missing in February last year, turning up later at home in Chile. He, unlike Boogers, did come back.

6 Brian Pinas

A member of a select group of players capable of inspiring an entry in The Sun Says by the power of their name alone - Stefan ****z, Celta Vigo's Turdo and Sparta Prague's Milan Fukal wait their turn - Dutch winger Pinas survived 12 months in Newcastle's reserves before returning, broken, to Feyenoord. Greeted on his arrival in August 1998 by the Sun's editorial ('Pity soccer star Brian Pinas. The first time a referee takes his name he'll get sent off for using foul language'), the winger made one substitute appearance in a pre-season friendly against Birmingham before disappearing for good into reserve team football. He was sold back to Feyenoord in 1999, Newcastle making £200,000 from the deal. However, confidence shattered by a year's worth of jokes, he failed to settle, and was quickly sold on to feeder club Excelsior in the Dutch second division.

7 Marco Negri

Every week, Marco Negri, Rangers long-serving reserve team striker, earns an estimated £18,000. As, at the start of this season, he hadn't kicked a ball for Rangers in 26 months, with the exception of a brief substitute appearance against Morton in the Scottish Cup, that's almost £2m banked for no return. He arrived from Perugia for £3.5m in June 1997 under Walter Smith, scoring a phenomenal 23 goals in ten games - the best strike rate in Europe. But the warning signs were already there: Negri refused to celebrate his goals with more than a handshake, and managed to look aloof even while hitting the back of the net. He socialised only with full-back Sergio Porrini, with whom he played squash. During one of their matches, Negri was hit in the eye, and was out injured for weeks; once he recovered, his first team appearances were few and far between. Last month, now under Dick Advocaat, he played in the Rangers youth team that lost a pre-season friendly to East Fife. But with another £18,000 in the bank, he's not complaining.

8 Alberto Tarantini

Known chiefly for his haircut and temper, Alberto Tarantini was by far the least successful of England's 1970's Argentinian imports. Skilful on the ball but with no positional sense or discipline, his year at Birmingham City was fiercely unhappy - particularly given his pedigree as a World Cup winner. Whereas Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa made a positive mark at Spurs, Tarantini came and went in 23 games, with little or no footballing consequence. His career in England anded in 1987 after he waded into a home crowd for a punch up - a little publicised precursor to Eric Cantona's efforts at Selhurst Park 17 years later. At £295,000 from Boca Juniors, he was one of the first great foreign flops.

9 Stephane Guivarc'h

Stephane Guivarc'h features strongly among a convincing list of Newcastle contenders. Signed by Kenny Dalglish for £3.5m in 1998 and instantly belittled by successor Ruud Gullit, the French World Cup winner moved on to Rangers for another brief, miserable spell. He returned to Auxerre for £3.5m last summer, having collected substantial signing-on fees due to him from both clubs. 'I knew I could leave Rangers via an escape clause,' he said. 'I made sure of that after my experience at Newcastle.' Today, Guivarc'h is notable only for the interesting apostrophe between the c and h in his surname - the relic of Breton, a language once spoken by half-a-million Celts, and meaning 'swift stallion'.

10 Savo Milosevic

Yugoslavia's hero in Euro 2000 was a disaster at Aston Villa. Cleverly nicknamed 'Miss-a-lot-evic' by the tabloids, his finishing and approach play at Villa Park eventually left Brian Little, who signed him from Partizan Belgrade for £3.5m, unemployed. Villa fans failed to take to him despite 28 goals in 90 games, including the winner in the club's League Cup final victory over Leeds. The pressure became too much. After spitting flamboyantly at his own fans in Villa's 5-0 defeat to Blackburn he was put on the transfer list and sold to Real Zaragoza for £3.5m at the end of the season, where he recovered his form. Now he's off to Parma for £16m.

The Quiet Earth wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:Oi, Marco Boogers no longer makes the list ?

Don't worry the crazy one makes this list. Wasn't he mentally ill?

He appeared quite normal (although being somewhat of a c**t) over here in Holland.

Typical Sparta player


....if I hadn't read these boards I wouldn't know anything about this, the story as told here is (to my information) unknown in Holland

Negri was a monster! 23 goals in 10 games, and he only played half a season and scored 32 goals. How many would he have scored if he'd played the full season?

The Quiet Earth wrote:
[i]
35 Ned Zelic, Borussia Dortmund to Queens Park Rangers, £1.25m, July 1995

Blamed the hard English ground for his injuries and quickly returned to Germany.

17 Florin Raducioiu, Espanyol to West Ham United, £2.4m, July 1996

Lasted only six months after missing training to go shopping.

Newcastle have some right shockers in there

I'm suprised the 'next Zidane' Bruno Cheyrou wasn't in that list.

Newcastle have 9 players on that list. But their conduct in the transfer market has been questionable for a while.

The Quiet Earth wrote:Newcastle have 9 players on that list. But their conduct in the transfer market has been questionable for a while.

Bramble and Asprilla shouldn't be in there really.

Where is Darren Bent? Zokora? Kaboul? Dean Richards? Where's Lillian Laslandes? All more worthy than Asprilla who is a cult hero at Newcastle.

there's some crazy ones I don't remember at all on there:

Fulham paid £11.5m for Steve Marlet!

someone spent £7.5m on Kevin Davies!

Corrado Grabbi!



Bosko Balaban is a fine contribution from Villa. god knows what that was about.

don't get why Baros to Villa is on there, really. he wasn't great, but wasn't a complete disaster and we shipped him off fairly fast in an excellent swap deal.

also, Milosevic had a decent goal rate. not a roaring success (underachieved compared to elsewhere), and left under a cloud, but also not a catastrophe.

Collymore was more of a failure than either of them, but comes in far lower.

Here's a non-EPL one for you:

We bought Elvir Baljić from Fenerbahçe for €26m (a personal request of Toshack!). He scored 1 goal in 11 appearances before finally (after a couple of loan spells) going back to Turkey on a free!

Axeslammer wrote:

The Quiet Earth wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:Oi, Marco Boogers no longer makes the list ?

Don't worry the crazy one makes this list. Wasn't he mentally ill?

He appeared quite normal (although being somewhat of a c**t) over here in Holland.

Typical Sparta player


....if I hadn't read these boards I wouldn't know anything about this, the story as told here is (to my information) unknown in Holland

Please, do explain.

Newcastle have produced plenty of candidates as far as bizarre, ill judged, and unsuccessful signings go, but a few points:

The inclusion of Asprilla is ridiculous. I'm not convinced that there is even a grain of truth in the idea that his signing unbalanced the side during the 95/96 title run in. We lost out on that title due to an excellent Man Utd run of form; due to our own inexperience; and due to what was, for me, a run of dreadful luck - hitting the post countless times against Man Utd, losing the Liverpool game 4-3, succumbing to one-off wonder strikes from the likes of Graham Fenton and Ian Woan. Asprilla actually won us some important points that season, and we arguably needed his flair considering that Ginola went off the boil for us two-thirds of the way through the season.

Viana is another poor inclusion. I'd have him back at the club in a second. He was a player with obvious talent, with superb passing ability, who could have excelled with us had he been given faith and playing time.

For me, though I'm not quarreling with either of their inclusions, and though Boumsong was perhaps the worst of the three given what we paid for him - still for me, Andy O'Brien was much worse in defence than either of Bramble or Boumsong.

Tomasson was one of a group of striker signings that didn't work in the slightest for us in the late 90s'. It is true that he was played somewhat out of position, often used as a main striker rather than as a support striker - we sold Ferdinand that summer, then a few days later Shearer got injured, which meant we had Asprilla when fit and Tomasson, with Rob Lee and sometimes even Steve Watson filling in up front. However, though I think he is a superb player now, Tomasson was awful with us, and it isn't the case that our style of play was particularly unsuited to him. He lacked confidence and didn't adapt well; he looked very slow; I recall his shots on goal because it always seemed as though he'd injected helium into the ball - his shots always floated so softly through the air and into the keepers' arms. Guivarch in his few appearances looked worse, and we also had a guy called Andreas Andersson, who was just as bad in the main, but he at least ran a bit - I remember one ridiculous goal that he scored that kind of summed him up - he was through on goal, ran towards the keeper, tripped, and as he fell to the ground the ball hit his knee and bobbled over the keeper and in.

On the funny name theme, we had a Cypriot called Nicky Papavasiliou who played a few games for us on the wing, then went home.

The most bizarre signing I can think of is our signing of Lionel Perez. He was a bleached-blonde goalkeeper who we actually signed from Sunderland, as a third choice behind Given and Harper. It just made no sense to bring in a guy, already getting on, who was never going to play, who would have been abused had he ever been called upon, from our arch-rivals.

We signed a guy called Fabio..who was Emerson's cousin. He played once I think, that must be one of our most pointless. There was also Ricardinho was never played, and only made the bench once. Deemed not fit enough to play in the EPL.

Since 1888 wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:

The Quiet Earth wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:Oi, Marco Boogers no longer makes the list ?

Don't worry the crazy one makes this list. Wasn't he mentally ill?

He appeared quite normal (although being somewhat of a c**t) over here in Holland.

Typical Sparta player


....if I hadn't read these boards I wouldn't know anything about this, the story as told here is (to my information) unknown in Holland

Please, do explain.

HAP !

wot about "george weah's" cousin souness bought

For the future lists: Rachid Bouaouzan.

Has he even played for Wigan already? Thanks for the million euro Wigan for such a $h!t player.

Bashmachkin wrote:The most bizarre signing I can think of is our signing of Lionel Perez. He was a bleached-blonde goalkeeper who we actually signed from Sunderland, as a third choice behind Given and Harper. It just made no sense to bring in a guy, already getting on, who was never going to play, who would have been abused had he ever been called upon, from our arch-rivals.

Wasnt there a rumour that he was gay and thats why Peter Reid let him go?

borocooper wrote:

Bashmachkin wrote:The most bizarre signing I can think of is our signing of Lionel Perez. He was a bleached-blonde goalkeeper who we actually signed from Sunderland, as a third choice behind Given and Harper. It just made no sense to bring in a guy, already getting on, who was never going to play, who would have been abused had he ever been called upon, from our arch-rivals.

Wasnt there a rumour that he was gay and thats why Peter Reid let him go?

I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense - cosmopolitan, enlightened, all-embracing Newcastle rising above the provincial, ignorant nastiness of the monkey-headed mackems.

Didn't Clarence Seedorf get Milan to sign his nephew even though there was 0 chance of him ever even making the reserves ?