++ [ originally posted by Martin ] ++
I don't know about biggest but there have been a bunch of deals struck that in hindsight don't seem like the best piece of business.
Acquisitions:
Dimas
Esnaider
Paramatti
Athirson
Moretti
Salas
Fresi
Zenoni £14m in the Inzaghi sale
O'Neill
Baiocco
Di Vaio E26m
Legrottaglie
Zebina??
Sales:
Ravanelli
Vieri £10m
Boksic
Henry
Davids (even though signing him in the first place was brilliant)
Di Vaio E10m
Maresca
Miccoli
Only Now all these acquisitions seem like mistakes, but at the time, many of these moves didn't seem like a mistake. Many of the players underperformed or were sidelined by the coach.
Esnaider: He was actually promising and if i remember correctly, he was suppsed to help out because Del Piero had that terrible injury in Nov98. Expectation were too high (He had to fill DPs shoes). Inzaghi ended up playing as the lone striker most game. Esnaider was also hit with so many injuries.
Athirson: Smart move... we needed someone to replace Pessotto. We didn't give him many chances. whatever chances he got, he messed up too. can't blame Moggi for this either.
Moretti: Average buy. not terrible. we didn't pay too much for him. He's still young after all and plays for the U-21 team. We'll see what happens.
Salas: We sold Kova and Inzaghi for a good amount of money so it was natural that we had to get a proven serie A goal scorer. I personally hated the move because I was never a fan of Salas and the fee paid to lazio was a bit high, but I wouldn't call this a "terrible" move.
Zenoni £14m in the Inzaghi sale I didn't know it was that much!! didn't we sell inzaghi for £16m and Zenoni came the other way? does that mean that Inzaghi was worth £30m?!!
Di Vaio E26m: again, we needed an attacker, but i agree, we paid too much for him.
Legrottaglie: At the time, he was a great buy! he just hasn't delivered.
Moggi can only do so much.. He can't predict the future... he just makes the deals...
I dont think Moggi's fantastic, but he's good enough. He can't be blamed for all of that!