Manchester United’s transfer record since Sir Alex Ferguson retired has been nothing to write home about as the Glazers spent billions on duds.
However, there were some embarrassments under the legendary manager too but they just flew under the radar as the Manchester United bandwagon kept plundering silverware.
Of those embarrassments, apparently, Paul Scholes and Sir Alex Ferguson agree, in no uncertain terms, on who was the biggest one of them all.
After all, it’s not often Sir Alex Ferguson would call one of his former players a “terrible professional” and “overweight”!
Sir Alex Ferguson’s brutal verdict on Mark Bosnich
Paul Scholes recently went viral for calling Mark Bosnich the worst-ever signing at Manchester United, going as far as to say that he couldn’t kick the ball very far.
Scholes is generally known for being straight-talking and frank, so his words were not a surprise, although his pick was.
Sir Alex, however, would not have been surprised with the pick as he has already delivered a similar verdict on Bosnich, in even more brutal terms.
In his book “My Autobiography”, released in 2013, Sir Alex called Mark Bosnich a “terrible professional”, someone he couldn’t “make any impact” on.
He wrote: “Mark Bosnich was a terrible professional. We played down at Wimbledon and Bosnich was tucking into everything: sandwiches, soups, steaks. He was going through the menu.
“I told him, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mark, we’ve got the weight off you. Why are you tucking into all that stuff?’
“We arrived back in Manchester, and Mark was on mobile phone to a Chinese restaurant to order a takeaway. Is there no end to you? I just couldn’t make an impact on him.”
He didn’t mince any words in the press conference to launch his book at the time either, launching into another rant about the goalkeeper.
“Mark got off to a real bad start. He turned up for training three hours late. He was overweight. We had a bad period trying to replace Peter Schmeichel. Goalkeepers are not my strongest point. By the time we got to [Edwin] van der Sar, it was a blessing.”
Worst Man Utd signing of all time
It is a debate that will go on as long as football exists and one might get ten different answers if they were to talk to ten different people.
For all his faults, and clearly there were many, Bosnich rightly claims that he was signed by United twice and even beyond that, had a career at Premier League level and internationally.
There have been others, like Bebe, who were signed on a whim and immediately stood out as a sore thumb in a world-class side.
More recently, Antony is trending upwards on the worst signing list due to the combination of his transfer fee and tragic displays on the field.
Others, like Juan Sebastian Veron, Angel di Maria, or Romelu Lukaku didn’t live up to expectations but at least United managed to recoup a big part of the transfer fee on their eventual sale.
Ineos have started well in their first summer, spending sensible sums on good players so the hope is that the list doesn’t add many names from the current regime in the future.
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