EPL Top 10: Worst Foreign Signings

The Premiership's history is punctuated by some of the most exciting global players to grace the game in recent years.

Paolo di Canio, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp, and Peter Schmeichel have all given us magical moments and earned lavish praise.

But what about the other side of the foreign coin—what about those international signings that managers would love to annul from the annals of history?

And I'm not talking here about the big names who didn't do as well as we'd have thought—the likes of Veron and Rebrov, Diouf and Grabbi.

No no.

Here we take a look at the Forgotten Ones—the ones who made us ask how on earth they ever got their first professional contracts, and just who was taken in for a reason they could never quite fathom later on. 

Hold your breath as we plunge into a pool of torment and pity—and you might just be able to hear the tearing up of a contract belonging to the scout who recommended them in the first place...

10. Vicente Matias Vuoso. Man City/Kevin Keegan

City had a new look strikeforce for the 2002-03 season after Keegan spent a reported £3.5m on the Argentinian scoring sensation.

Vuoso never got off the bench in his first season, and was farmed out on loan for the second—meaning he left without kicking a competitive ball for City.

9. Glenn Helder. Arsenal/George Graham

Arsene's policy of buying young world-beaters didn't start with Cesc, Denilson, and Bendtner—first there was Tomas Danilevicius, Stathios Tavlaridis, Igor Stepanovs, and Alberto Mendez, amongst others.

However the Arsenal award goes to George Graham's final signing as manager (who played under Wenger)—the not-so-speedy winger Helder. Helder started 27 games in three seasons before being ditched and replaced by the rather better Dutchman Marc Overmars.

8. Najwan Ghrayib. Aston Villa/John Gregory

I was tempted to put Gustavo Bartelt in for Villa, who lasted a whole three months and was named on the bench once—but watching Ghrayib play left back for the Villains was just too funny to ignore.

Why they thought the Israeli was a Premiership player I'll never know—I'm just disappointed Liverpool never got to attack against him.

One start, four sub appearances, less than a year at Villa Park, bye bye.

7. Sean Dundee. Liverpool/Roy Evans-Gerard Houllier

We were looking forward to a lightning-quick attack at Anfield in 1998 when Houllier announced the signing of a player who was, in his own words, as "quick as Michael Owen."

Judging by the look of him in his three league appearances, the only thing Dundee was quick at was getting to the front of the lunch queue.

37 competitive minutes, no goals, no ability. The only good thing about him was that Stuttgart saw fit to pay the Reds a million to take him away.

6. Carsten Fredgaard. Sunderland/Peter Reid

Lightning quick, bags of skill, scores plenty, natural successor to Laudrup in the Danish National Team—all comments spoken with Fredgaard in mind as he flew in to sign for the Wearsiders.

He managed one appearance in his slighty-over-two-year stay in the North East...before returning to Denmark with a slightly deflated reputation.

5. Rodrigo. Everton/David Moyes

What a bundle of choices I had for the Everton award.

Weifing Li, Alex Nyarko, Mikael Madar—but the pick of the bunch must be "the new Denilson" (the old left winger, not the new centre midfielder), Rodrigo.

Dubbed by his own club as the Brazilian Beckham, and similar to Kewell but better at finishing and free kicks, "Rodrigol" made a massive four appearances in a year before the club got fed up with waiting for him to be any good.

4. Mbulelo Mabizela. Tottenham Hotspur/Glenn Hoddle

A few possibilities from the man who brought us Milenko Acimovic and Jonathon Blondel...but Mabizela was the youngest ever South Africa National Team captain before he joined Spurs, and seven appearances (six as sub) later, he wasn't even in the squad.

18 months he lasted at Tottenham before they turned their back on him. He went to try his hand in Norway before being banned last year for drug offences.

3. Andrea Silenzi. Nottingham Forest/Frank Clark

Silenzi and Kevin Campbell were Forest's first-choice strikeforce in 1995-96 as they sought to offset the loss of Stan Collymore to Liverpool.

Campbell scored three times, Silenzi a big fat zero. He made two further appearances the following season before leaving the club without netting a single goal.

2. Florin Raducioiu. West Ham/Harry Redknapp

'Arry might be signing some decent players now at Pompey, but I could fill this entire article with some absolutely diabolical signings at West Ham.

Hugo Porfirio, Marco Boogers, Paulo Futre, Samassi Abou, and Ragnvald Soma all spring to mind—while the Work Permit panel must cringe at their decision to allow Hayden Foxe to play in the country.

However, the absolute top pick has to be Romanian striker Florin Raducioiu, who, 11 games after his £2.4m move to Upton Park, decided he'd prefer to go on a shopping expedition in London rather than play a game on a Saturday.

He didn't last much longer in England.

1. Ali Dia. Southampton/Graeme Souness

I don't know who should take the blame on this one—chairman, manager, or secretary.

"George Weah" phoned to leave a message for Souness that he was the cousin of Ali Dia, an international striker who'd played for Paris St. Germain in France. Rather than check this out, Souness, short of strikers, stuck him on the bench without seeing him play.

After 32 minutes Le Tissier got injured, so on came Dia. What followed was without doubt the most spectacularly bad performance the Premiership has ever seen—Dia was substituted before the end of the game and immediately released from his contract.