10 Southampton Foreign Import Strikers Who Were Major Flops

8. Eric Hassli

Cost: Loan Games: 0 Goals: 0 The Gordon Strachan era in the early 2000s remains Southampton's most successful run in the last 25 years, finishing 11th in 2001/02 and then 8th and making the Cup Final in 2002/03. With club legend Matthew Le Tissier announcing his retirement in March 2002 the club were looking for a new forward to partner regular goalscorer James Beattie. There was a suggestion that Saints had found just that in Metz striker and France Under-21 international Eric Hassli who had impressed Strachan in a trial and arrived on a loan deal for the rest of the season at the same time as Le Tissier's announced retirement. 6 foot 4 inch Hassli was talked of as a dangerous aerial threat, but it was his reputation for scoring spectacular goals that had fans wondering whether Strachan had found the heir to Le Tissier. Any notions of Hassli as a future star of the newly built St. Mary's Stadium were quickly quashed when the towering Frenchman failed to make a single appearance for the first team. Apparently his eight games for the reserves were enough to show Strachan that Hassli was not the player that he thought he was. Hassli would eventually carve out a moderately successful career in Switzerland before moving to Canada to play in the American Major League.