Worst 11 of the last decade

[United Aren't Back.]

I thought it was:

"If Porter scores
We're on the pitch
If Porter scores
We're on the pitch."


I think you'll have to go a long way to beat

------------------------Long-------------------------------

Taylor---McEveley---Collins---Higginbotham---Westlake

---------Howard--------Ertl----------Flynn-----------------

-------------------------Baxter-------------------------------

-------------------------Higdon-----------------------------

Managed by Wier, for shitness.

pommpey

No Conor Sammon?
Flynn worst ever?
I'd try Billy Paynter in place of Ryan Flynn.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

I can't be the only one who found Robson's most annoying trait to be pulling out results when he needed them to stay on side of the board?
That sodding 1-0 win away at Leicester kept him around like a resurfacing fart.

The FA cup win v Manchester city.

 

[DifferentClass]

1. Dean Hammond
2. Dean Hammond
3. Dean Hammond

...you get the idea.

 

[diplomat]

I always got the impression that Blackwell got told he couldn't spend much and had to deal with what he got.

In his first full season McCabe sells Beattie, mid bloody season replaced by Craig Beattie. In my view that alone was the killer for us regardless of what Blackwell did to manage that. He didn't sign anyone for a transfer fee I don't think in his first full season. He just was allowed the loans of Cahill, O'Toole, Bromby and Lupoli. While Beattie, Stead, Tonge and Armstrong all got sold. Keef's contract got cancelled as well.

In his second season around 20 players left the club including both Kyle's. The most he spent was £3mil for Ched but if I remember rightly much of that fee was based on appearances and performances. 9 players arrived and 4 of those were free transfers. There were some undisclosed fees but I can't imagine we paid a fortune for the likes of Bromby and Stewart.

Under Blackwell the football was poor but effective but he couldn't wheel and deal like Warnock. Most of the players he brought in were worse than what we had before.

Blackwell got the job because he had experience of slashing a budget whilst remaining competitive, which is exactly what he did. For what money was wasted on wages I blame Birch far more than Blackwell as he ultimately signed off on contracts that he presumably negotiated.

 

[GymClassHero]

Kevin Blackwell was just a twat in general. I used to cringe watching his interviews. Thoroughly dislikable fellow.

Simonsen

Stewart
Nosworthy
McEveley (c)
Westlake

Woolford
Hammond
Baxter
Brandy

Bogdanovic
Higdon

Would give any man nightmares... for all the wrong reasons!

 

[pommpey]

No Conor Sammon?
Flynn worst ever?
I'd try Billy Paynter in place of Ryan Flynn.

Yeah. I'm going for the 'less obvious' choices.

I know Hammond and Sammon were a pair of fluffy, nut-bejewelled and buoyant turds in a stinking bowl of bubbly piss, liquefied shit and undigested sweetcorn kernels, but Ryan Flynn was possibly the sixteenth wad of paper you'd be eternally wiping your winker with and still drawing a vague yellowy-brown smear.

pommpey

 

[davidblade]

I thought it was:

"If Porter scores
We're on the pitch
If Porter scores
We're on the pitch."


I think you'll have to go a long way to beat

------------------------Long-------------------------------

Taylor---McEveley---Collins---Higginbotham---Westlake

---------Howard--------Ertl----------Flynn-----------------

-------------------------Baxter-------------------------------

-------------------------Higdon-----------------------------

Managed by Wier, for shitness.

pommpey

Most unfair on Flynn

 

[Eza Blade]

Simonsen

Daryl Westlake
Jay McEveley
Nyron Nosworthy
Marcus Williams

Martyn Woolford
Barry Robson
Dean Hammond
Jordan Stewart

Michael Higdon
Connor Sammon

Managed by Weir

There’s a great fund raiser here of how much to buy one of the 11 bullets and how much to pull the trigger on one!!

 

[Cassius Kray]

You could argue Adams and Weir were worse, but the former had plenty of success elsewhere as a manager, and the latter was a daft appointment who was never ready for the challenge.

Hang about - Weir can't be our worst manager because he was so incompetent we shouldn't have hired him in the first place?

 

[1973Blade]

Billy Paynter deserves a mention. Or maybe he doesn't.

 

[pommpey]

Most unfair on Flynn

No, I'm afraid I stand by my decision. I am backed up by VAR too.

Flynn played about seven games before he'd show up with a 6/10. The rest of the time he was either neshing it or trying to bet players far less naive than he. It was almost as if there were ten Sheffield United players out there and one strange, bowl-cut jock in the same strip, but playing for some other Sheffield United team.

'e war bobbar.

pommpey

 

[crucialkneeligaman]

He might sneak in by virtue of playing 11 games (9 starts) in 2010 but he doesn't really feel like a 10s player.

There was a lengthy discussion about the worst XI on Beans and Roygbiv 's Man U preview thread (here); below is mine which takes advantage of Dean Hammond's invisibility to utilise a novel 4-5-2 formation.



GK: Mark Howard. The most mediocre goalkeeper of a fairly poor selection: we didn't actually have any horrendous goalkeepers through the 10s but then neither did we have any good ones until Henderson joined in 2018.

RB: Darryl Westlake. Another in a line of players we signed from Walsall with high expectations and low reality. Sank quickly, last seen at Stourbridge in 2016.
DC: Neill Collins. The fact that we sank from the Championship into the quagmire of League One and couldn't get out was because our spine was poor - nowhere near as good as they thought they were. Collins' ability to deflect the blame onto his younger colleagues was impressive, his series of sub-par performances less so.
DC: Danny Higginbotham. Should have retired six months before he pitched up at the Lane; played like he already had
LB: Marcus Williams. It wasn't his fault he was shit but it was a fact. Incapable of a five yard pass; specialised in shanking clearances into touch 5 yards up the line

RM: Fabien Brandy. Dead from the neck up as evidenced by those two red cards.
MC: Michael Doyle. This will be controversial but the fact remains that while Doyle was at the Lane, we were awful.
MC: Dean Hammond. Parasite. Did lots of unseen work; so busy doing that that he did fuck all visible work...except giving away a ludicrous penalty in the 93rd minute at Old Trafford
MC: Florent Cuvelier. Promised so much, delivered so little. Permanently injured
LM: Kieran Wallace. It wasn't his fault we plucked him from non-league and dumped him into the third tier but a basic football ability would have been nice. Foxy has a video somewhere of a fantastic free-kick Wallace took.

ST: Daniel Bogdanovic. Barnsley fans were gutted when we signed him. He was shite.
ST: James Beattie. See Fabien Brandy.

Manager: "Alehouse" Micky Adams. Shades Weir for me because of the lasting damage his reign did to the club. Awful signings, alienation of our better players, the last United manager to get us relegated. A terrible legacy.

Honourable mentions (>10 apps)
Goalkeepers: Steve Simonsen (that penalty); George Long (better than many gave him credit for but the 2016 version, confidence destroyed by a combination of Neill Collins and the Kop, was pretty awful); Iain Turner (can't actually recall any performances)
Right backs: Tony McMahon (shitbag); Johannes Ertl (harsh; but post knee-knack he was terrible)
Centre backs: Nyron Nosworthy (Notworthy); David Edgar (nondescript); Cameron Carter-Vickers (unbelievable ability to take his teammates out); Paddy McCarthy (too good to train with his teammates)
Left backs: Joe Mattock
Right mids: Barry Robson (we chased him for ages and he was godawful)
Centre mids: Samir Carruthers (so much promise, so little delivered)
Left mids: David Carney (the world's neshest Australian); Martyn Woolford (the best performance he gave was his middle finger to the Kop. At least he put some effort into that)
Strikers: John Cofie (Man U paid £1,000,000 for him when he was 14!); Marcus Bent (desperation signing); Jonathan Forte; David Kitson (another with an inflated belief in long-since-departed ability); Michael Higdon (Higgopotamus); Conor Sammon (the best striker in the world when it comes to missing open goals from 4 yards)

Robson wasn't bad and to include Kitson is laughable. Can't really argue about the rest.

 

[Harvsufc]

Is anybody forgeting chris hussey? Not far behind willams and hill. Thoughy jean calve was crap other than that worldy he scored.

 

[O Fletch]

Gk Simmonsen
DR Westlake
DC Allcock
DC Paddy McCarthy
DL Williams
MR David McCallister
MC Flo Cauvellier
MC McGinn
ML Brandy
SC Paynter
SC O halloran

 

[LardSardine]

As mentioned above, BladesPod did this last week but while I was listening I had a few players in mind, so here’s mine…It’s only because of where we are now that makes this such a cathartic act and reminds you (as if you didn’t need reminding) of how truly awful 2009-2016 was!

GK: Steve Simonsen – Not the worst GK we’ve ever had, but certainly one of the worst to play so many games. If I remember right wasn’t he actually quite good during his loan spell with us? But then as soon as he signed he got worse and worse, reflecting the rest of our squad I suppose. I would mention the penalty but it should never have got that far.

Honourable mention: Mark Howard who was as mediocre as you could get and summarised the rest of the team really.

RB: Darryl Westlake – Not sure I ever saw him have a good game and just seemed so far out of his depth.

Honourable Mention: Andy Taylor – Didn’t he come in to replace Kyle Walker? Nuff said!

LB: Marcus Williams – Can’t fault the effort but seemed like he was wearing clogs most of the time.

Honourable Mention: Jordan Stewart – The drop-off in quality in the three years in the Championship following Premier League relegation was shocking and this signing was symptomatic of that.

CB: Jay McEveley – He actually had one or two good games, but when he was bad, wow, he was BAD. Jay doesn’t play that 5-5 PO Semi at Swindon, we don’t concede 5.

CB: Jonny Ertl – I just remember thinking whether he was supposed to be a defender, or a midfielder and quickly realising he wasn’t even a footballer.

Honourable Mentions: Neill Collins – Not the worst defender we had but the spine we had in those middle-league one seasons is one of the main reasons we were so poor, and he was a main part of that. Craig Alcock – See Jay McEveley. Nyron Nosworthy – See Jordan Stewart!

LW: Martyn Woolford – The best thing I can say about him is that he was only the second worst signing by Adkins.

RW: Febian Brandy – 15 appearances, 2 red cards. I’m sure this guy had some talent but seemed to have no desire to show it in United colours.

Honourable Mentions: Simon Lappin – Weir signing who inexplicably had his loan extended by Clough, the start of many odd squad decisions he made. Leading me onto…Florent Cuvelier – So much promise but was one of those who couldn’t seem to get fit (see also James Wallace). Barry Robson – Started by scoring but gradually regressed to the dross we came to expect of that time.

CM: Dean Hammond – From the excitement of his signing thinking he was exactly what we needed to turn around our season to the realisation that he was probably the worst player in arguably our worst ever team. Congratulations that man.

CM: James Harper – Another I had high expectations of, he was great at Reading in their promotion season the year we went up together. Scored 4 goals none of which I remember. I only remember all the games passing him by, but the same happened with Brian Howard and Leon Brittan before him so that was maybe more to with Blackwell’s tactics.

Honourable Mention: Stephen McGinn – Can you believe he actually played 30 games for us?

CF: Daniel Bogdanovic – Quite a high profile signing but again, symptomatic of the signings that got us ultimately relegated. Truly awful.

CF: Michael Higdon – But not as awful as this fraud of a footballer. That season we really needed a striker and got this useless, overweight, immobile lump.

Honourable Mentions: A lot to choose from here. Lyle Taylor – Still amazed he’s not only made a living out of football but also progressed his career. I suppose he was young when with us, but he didn’t appear to have an ounce of football brain. Marlon King – We should never have been that desperate to have to make this signing, saddens me to think that we were. It wasn’t a risk that paid off. A trio of useless loans – Billy Paynter, Michael O’Halloran, Dominic Poleon.

Manager: Oh, what a set to choose from! I guess David Weir gets it just because of that record of 4 points from 9 games and it was getting worse.

Honourable Mentions: Micky Adams, Nigel Adkins. But any of the managers since the decade started up to Wilder could be mentioned.

 

[Rangoon blade]

Nyron nosworthy, Dean Hammond , the rest irrelevant. Nobody could come near the sheer shitness of those two although some did try didn't you jay !
Pound for pound the worst manager has to be Robson, he even left a match early to go on his mates stag do

 

[KoppedOff]

My oh my; some of the shite mentioned is breaking me out in a cold sweat. Its actually genuinely surprising some of them are within the last decade- seems light years away. I was going to put up a benevolent defence for two or three of the mentioned names, but to be honest, on reflection none of them are worth the effort and I cant be arsed.

 

[TheGoatPenguin]

Robson worst manager by far. He put together a bloody good team and would've still got us relegated if we'd had left him for the season. Weir was poor with a poor team but no excuse for poor with a team with decent players.

 

[Basegreen_Blade]

James Wilson. That prick of a kid we signed from Man U on loan season before last. His attitude was absolutely appalling - full of arrogance with nothing at all to back it up. On the pitch, he would just wander around putting in minimal effort. There was no real skill, or strikers instinct. He was/is/will forever be Wilder's worst signing by a long, long way.