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Anderson Could Well Be Sir Alex’s Worst Ever Signing

Many debates go on regarding football and maybe the biggest one when talking about Manchester United would be who is the reds best player of all time?

Equally as interesting is trying to come to a conclusion on who is the worst player ever to play for the club.

Since I started following United I have not seen any other manager in charge of the club other than Sir Alex Ferguson who has been at the helm for 25 years, so I thought I would try and come to a conclusion on who I think has been his biggest ever transfer flop during his time in charge at Old Trafford.

Most supporters will already be reeling names off the top of their heads now, names such as Ralph Milne, Liam Miller, David Bellion, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, Massimo Taibi, Diego Forlan, Juan Sebastian Veron & Bebe, one name I surprisingly never hear in that list is Uniteds Brazilian midfielder Anderson, surly he tops the list if you look at the bigger picture?

Financially most supporters would probably agree that Juan Sebastian Veron is Sir Alex’s biggest ever transfer flop. The Argentinean arrived at Old Trafford for a fee of £28.1million back in the summer of 2001 which was a British transfer record at that time. It never really happened for Veron at United, so much was expected of him but he struggled to stamp his authority in a midfield that already had United legends Paul Scholes and Roy Keane in that central position.

There is also the theory that back in 2001 when United signed Veron they didn’t actually require his services at that time, although it is believed Sir Alex signed him to try and take them to another level in European football.

The thing about Veron was that every supporter knew he was a special talent who unfortunately joined the club at the wrong time, eleven years after he signed we are now crying out for that exact same type of player.

Most supporters will base Veron being the worst signing because of the transfer fee, but if you are going off the financial aspect of a player’s career with the club why would you not consider Anderson as the worst?

If you try to research the fee United paid Porto for Anderson it proves a difficult task as most websites have contradicting fees, United announced that he joined the club for an ‘undisclosed fee’, the transfer fee Porto announced was €30 million, which was equivalent to around £25.6 million in May 2007, if that information is correct it means that Anderson cost only £2.5million less than Veron and the Brazilian has been a constant disappointment at United.

Veron could pick a pass, tackle, dictate the pace of a game, he had the odd goal in him, Anderson is the complete opposite of all those attributes I just mentioned, what is Anderson actually good at? Putting on weight? Pulling daft faces at goalkeepers when United have set pieces to try and put them off?

Seriously though, what are Anderson’s stand-out attributes? Passing? Tackling? Scoring goals? Creating chances for others? Heading? Crossing? Defending? Attacking? Could any supporter confidently say yes to him being competent at any of them parts of a midfielder’s game I have just mentioned? I can’t.

I would put Anderson at the top of the list as Sir Alex’s worst ever signing in front of Ralph Milne, Liam Miller, David Bellion, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, Massimo Taibi, Diego Forlan, and Bebe. My reason being that all the others I mentioned joined the club when we knew relatively little about them, so we did not expect big thing from them, Anderson on the other hand was touted as the ‘new Ronaldinho’ and watching clips of the player in his Porto days it was easy to see why supporters set their expectations for him so high.

United legend Paul Scholes trained with Veron everyday when he was at the club and said the Argentine was one of the best players he ever played with, Sir Alex also defended any criticism of Veron from the media claiming the player was world class, has a player or the manager ever said similar things about Anderson?

Anderson had a fantastic first season with the club, but the seasons that have followed that have been hugely disappointing. Five years on from when the Brazilian first joined the club and you will still hear some supporters keeping the faith and producing comments like ‘this will be Anderson’s year’ or ‘give the lad time.’

Personally I just cant see him ever establishing himself at United and that is why when you look at the Anderson transfer as a whole against that of Veron’s, its a no-brainer that the Brazilian is the worst signing that Sir Alex has ever made.

By Kevin Ashford @KevinAshford7

13 Comments

  1. I can't agree with this article I'm afraid, just as Stuart said; what about Hargreaves? Why did Fergie insist on chasing Hargreaves and pay so much for a player who already had a horrendous injury record, it was obvious from the off that we had bought a dud. The other thing with Anderson is that Fergie has tried to change him and constantly plays him out of position so I don't think its entirely Andersons fault that he has flopped to an extent. Mind you, I wouldn't be sorry to see him leave! 🙂

  2. Your whole premise is really silly. Somehow Kleberson – to take just one of your examples – was an unknown, even though we had been watching him in the Brazil World Cup team, while Anderson who had never even been in the Brazil squad was a “star”.
    I know you need to be contra-ver-shul to get traffic, but posting such silliness does you no favours.

  3. completely agree with this article…..and to reference hargreaves is ludricous….he was a fine player….and had an outstanding impact on uniteds double season…however sadly injuries stopped a brilliant career….that can happen…however anderson is a severely limited player who as gotten worse in the years he should be getting better…how anyone can class hargreaves and anderson in the same breath is beyond me……..put it this way if hargreaves stayed injury free do you honestly believe his impact wouldve been as minimal as andersons?? hargreaves could be fergies unluckiest…but his worst???? only a moron could think that!!

  4. I cant understand why everyone's hating on Anderson at the beginning of last season it seems to me like he was finally realizing his true potential until he was stroke down by injures. From preseason he started to add goal scoring to his game and that form followed over into the start of the season. I honestly don't agree with this article because just last year you all were singing his praises and glowing partnership with cleverly but you all also seem to forget that he also got stroke with injures but you dont hear people shouting out and writing articles for him to leave do you

  5. This article was not done to create traffic, it is my opinion that I am entitled to put across and I strongly believe that for the transfer fee paid & the constant season after season disappointment, Anderson has been Sir Alex's worst signing.

    Hargreaves, when fully fit, was immense for United & Sir Alex chased him for so long because he was an outstanding player. He was an integral part of the team when we won the Premier and Champions League double in 2008, his first season with the club.

  6. just to make the point when i mentioned hargreaves it was in reference to the people posting that hargreaves was uniteds worst signing which is frankly ridiculous….not the author of this feed who i agree with………..hargreaves was a future united great…….unlucky with injuries……it was worth a gamble…16 mill in the current market for a world class centre mid wasnt a terrible judgement on sir alexs part……..just unlucky…..however anderson was for me up there with bebe….just far more costly…………

  7. £17-18m is the figure I remember too. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have spent £25m on Anderson, especially as we didn't even have a clear idea where we wanted to play him.

    Veron wasn't such a bad signing in the end because we got half the money back when we sold him to Chelsea. I'd have to say Berbatov was the worst big signing. Utterly pointless waste of £30m at a time when we really could have done with that money to strengthen other areas of the team.

  8. If anderson is so useless, why does Sir Alex Fergson continue playing him. Anderson at 18 mil is a far better bet than the likes of Bebe for 7mil. Just because your expectations were lower because you hadnt heard of the player does not make them any less of a poor buy. Anderson does not seem as good as he was before he injured his cruciate a few years back and spent a fair amount of time out last season. Granted, he has not fulfilled the potential he showed prior to him being bought, but Fergie obviously has faith in him. A player does not dictate how much a club pay for them in transfer fees, they should be judged on how they perform on the pitch and to that end, he is no where near Fergie's worst buy.

  9. I think Anderson has time and space to recover from a start where the money went to his head as crashing his high performance car was his most famous act while at United.

    Berbatov was a waste of money, not hard enough worker, too old to have any resale and hard to see what he was bought to add to the team.

    Veron was class, just didn't work out.

    Taibi was a terrible mistake, and so was Kleberson, awful players.

    Some people wasted their talent like Sharpe did and Bosnich, another bad buy was Larry White who was pasted in the premier league, sad to watch him struggle.

    Darren Gibson also has to go down as a player I'd like to forget alongside Darren Ferguson.

    Sir isn't always right !

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