Although Todd hasn't set the world alight, the signing of David Thompson for a mere £1.5m from Coventry is simply genius. He is one of the best British all round midfielders. He also picked up Friedel on a free.
Anyone that says Sir Alex gets banned immediately. It's gotta be Houllier. I don't have the time to research the exact amounts, but players like Hyypia, Henchoz, and Riise have just been outstanding, and they were all bought pretty cheap. The purchase of Hyypia alone is enough to catapult him into first place. Surely somebody has the exact amounts paid for these players??
The best bit of business has to have been Wenger getting Anelka for £250,000 and then selling him for £23m.
Giannluca Vialli. Bought Torre Andre Flo for 300,000 quid and floged him to the Rangers for 12 million.
Can't of been whilst Blackburn manager, I think Hyppia was in Liverpool's team by then. Houllier let Friedel go for a free, which was not such a good move.
Could have been with another team, I'm quite sure I read it recently. Help, anyone?? Friedel got a raw deal at Liverpool. Bear in mind, though, that he was new to the Premiership and not near the level he is now, having spent time at several clubs since.
Wenger. Huge profits made on Anelka, Overmars and Petit. The valuations of Vieira and Henry must be ridiculous and nobody had ever heard of Vieira before he came to Arsenal. And I'd say he'd make a tidy profit on Pires and Ljungberg if he wanted to at the moment too. He's just bought Gilberto Silva for £4.5m, a bargain in anyone's language. The bloke even managed to flog Luis Boa Morte for about the same amount he paid for him and he's shite.
He played for Milan at a time when they were still very much a european force and being managed by Fabio Cappello, I think its safe to say most people knew him, he just wasnt playing regularly. Same as Henry was a failed winger at juve.
The one who was only ever a useless kunt for the one season he played for chelsea, the one you thought worth 10 million as opposed to the one that couldnt play a full 90 minutes? Not really worth comparison, but im a bit baised in that respect.
I suppose he did do okay up North...but there are plenty of "reasons" for that eh? Seriously though he did do better in the SPl. He was an out an out fukin disaster for us. Thing about it is he made a reputation for himself with Shearer [SAS] whilst feeding of cross after cross and thriving on long thru balls......at the time we were renowned through out Europe for our "passing" game......never could figer that one out!! And, as was obvious, neither did he.
I was thinking more of his time with norwich and blackburn in particular. I agree tho there is noone I would want more on the end of a cross than big chris, he will get onto ahead of anyone and he will get it on target, scored screamers of diving headers against juve and ajax for us last season, while the boy tore was scuffing them against the likes of dinamo moscow
I think the figures speak for themselves: http://www.soccernet.com/england/news/2002/0813/20020813afctransfersafc.html And sure Vialli get's the award for Flo - he spent more on Flo than Wenger on Anelka and sold him for half as much, that's a much better deal... Has to be Wenger. When Houllier actually gets Liverpool to win the league, perhaps he has a shot, but until then...
All managers make mistakes/buy blatant stop-gaps. Stefan Malz, anyone? Christopher Wreh? Who has unearthed the most gems? That's the key. Petit, Overmars, Viera, Pires - all played European football for big clubs. In the instance of Petit, he was actually from a previous team that Wenger had managed. Hardly truffle-snuffling, that ... Having said that, when you consider Houllier you have to counterbalance the inarguable brilliance of purchases such as Hyypia and Riise with more debatable ones like Ferri and Meijer. It's the same for all managers. In other words, Superdave, I think it is impossible to positively conclude an answer to this question.
Surely the shrewdest managers are those that have very little money to spend in the first place and then manage to hang on to the players they have. Selling Overmars for a profit is good for the bank account but it didn't make Arsenal a better team did it. He was quality and it took 2 years to find his replacement in Pires. Alan Curbishley at Charlton is a good example. Boro have made some good signings too and even our lad up at Goodison.
Although he hasn't uncovered a real gem (and is unlikely to while our boss) I'll give Lord Gary Megson a shout simply cos he hasn't bought a player (yet) that has proved to be a bad piece of business for Albion. Every signing has improved on what we had (though when he took over that wasn't hard) and all the players he's bought have only lost their places due to better players being brought in to improve the squad, rather than them being over rated toss like some of the crap we've had to endure during the last decade.