Players you were happy we signed but turned out to be pants, and vice versa.

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Jo. I thought "christ we are desperate to take him on loan", but he did a job in his first spell.

Stracqualursi. Dear lord. But ended up a cult hero.

Earl Barrett. Thought he was alright at Villa. Naaaaa.
 

Have to be honest, I didn't think much of Arteta initially. Done that goal v Palace, but I was more concerned about the Gravesen-shaped hole being plugged than having a basque wizard I'd never heard of.

It wasn't until around Feb-ish in 2006 that I started to realise he was a bit of alright. By the autumn, he was our proper MVP. 2006/07 was vintage. If he was on form at Goodison, we won. Simples.

Will never forget that Bolton goal. 92 minutes of pure turd from both teams, but 30s of brilliance turned a dismal, freezing bore-fest into a fondly-remembered battle.

Just felt so good to do those dirty sods, especially after they'd reemed us 4-0 the year before. They had that wrong-un bully Nolan in the middle, but Arteta just mugged him off all afternoon.

They also had Diouf and Anelka up front, and that grock Meite at the back. Just a horrible team to play, the 80s Wimbledon of the 2000s.
 
Risking mild controversy, but Andy Johnson. Started well (and he's fondly remembered for a certain derby), but just frustrated me. Ran into a lot of blind alleys...
He was ruined by the witch hunt from knob heads such as Arsene Wenger who very publicly accused him of diving to win penalties. After a certain time he never got awarded another penalty for us despite being constantly fouled, which inevitably led to him losing confidence and his form dropping.

Disgusting by Wenger when you see how actual cheats such as Salah are talked in an almost God-like sense with people literally scared to criticise him.

I actually wasn't that excited when we signed him but quickly changed my mind. Thought he was very good for us in his time at the club.
 

As this thread is overwhelmingly biased towards those who underwhelmed, a few that pleasantly surprised me.

Tim Cahill is an obvious one. Obviously he'd done okay at Millwall, but he could easily have been a Jermaine Beckford style player, but he was so much more.

David Weir came to us towards the end of his career, having only broken into the Scottish side when he was 27, yet did pretty well for us. Even starker was Richard Gough, who could easily have been another of the Gazza, Hughes, and Ginola grandad brigade, yet did better than expected.

Marcus Bent came to us as a complete journeyman, and he was never anything special, but for that season he did a job, and won us some important points.

I'll gladly admit that I thought the Richarlison fee was absurd given his relatively modest impact at Watford, yet he's proven to be a cracking signing.

John Stones came with a decent reputation, but we've signed a shed load of promising young players from lower league clubs that have gone on to do bugger all, so for Stones to have made the impact he has massively exceeded my expectations.
 

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