10 Southampton Foreign Import Strikers Who Were Major Flops
2. Agustin Delgado
Cost: £3,500,000 Games: 11 Goals: 1 Back in November of 2001 Saints had never spent more than £4 million on any player, so the £3.5 million they put towards the purchase of Ecuadorian international striker Agustin Delgado that month represented a significant investment. On paper Delgado looked a useful investment, freely scoring in both the Mexican league, with Necaxa he notably scored against Real Madrid at the Club World Championship, and the World Cup. His 9 goals in the qualifiers for the 2002 tournament took Ecuador through to their first ever World Cup Finals. Fans were tantalised by video footage of Delgado's past highlights, his skillful forward play only going further to convince that this was the player that they'd been waiting for. By the time his signing finally went through, though, the manager who had initially been interested in Delgado, Stuart Gray, had been fired in favour of Strachan who was less sure of the Ecuadorian. It turned out that Strachan was right to have his doubts. Whatever Delgado's obvious talents might have been, his knees were clearly not up to the rigours of Premier League football. Delgado required an operation on the offending joints as soon as he arrived in Southampton and didn't make his debut until January 2002 where, in a game against Man United, he looked slow and easily outmatched. He would not feature in another Premier League game that season. In fact, in three years at the club he made all of 2 league starts and 9 appearances from the bench. Saints tried to get Delgado to settle in England, even going so far as to by his compatriot Cleber Chala to help him feel at home, but Strachan remained unable to communicate adequately with his striker. Delgado, for his part, was much happier returning to play for his country, where he continued to impress and continued to aggravate his knee problems further. For all his goals for Ecuador, he would only score once for Saints: in an impressive 3-2 win over Arsenal. Prefiguring Yaya Toure by a decade, the final straw for Delgado and Saints came when the team didn't sing "Happy Birthday" to him. Finally, after three years and one Premier League goal he moved back to Ecuador for free in the summer of 2004. He is now a politician, a job where failing to live up to your promise is practically the job description.
