10 Southampton Foreign Import Strikers Who Were Major Flops

10. Imants Bleidelis

Cost: £650,000 Games: 2 Goals: 0

One of Southampton's more successful forays into the international transfer market saw the arrival of "Latvian Michael Owen" Marian Pahars from Skonto Riga in the spring of 1999. The little Latvian's goals late that season helped keep Dave Jones' team in the Premiership, so naturally the Saints management were keen on more of the same. Operating on the assumption that the tiny Baltic republic was an untapped minefield of footballing talent, Jones and his team returned to snap up what seemed like another bargain forward: winger Imants Bleidelis, who arrived in December 1999. Bleidelis was around the same age as Pahars and cost Saints about the same amount. He too was a regular in the Latvian national team and had been a key player in the same Skonto Riga team. There was every reason to suggest, therefore, that the winger would both bring something of a similar quality to Pahars to the Saints team and would link well with his former teammate. The 24 year old Bleidelis was given a three and a half year contract at the Dell, so the Saints board obviously had faith in him. Over the following season Pahars was the club's top scorer with 13 goals. Bleidelis' contribution was somewhat less significant. In fact, he didn't appear in a single game. It took him until September of the following season to make his Saints debut, in a League Cup game against Mansfield, and until the following February to play in the Premier League, coming off the bench for the last seven minutes against Bradford. He would only appear once more in his entire Saints career, for one minute at the end of a win over West Ham in January 2002. That was it, after eight minutes of Premier League football in three years Bleidelis was finally released by the club in January 2003 after which he moved to mid-table Danish club Viborg.