10 Southampton Foreign Import Strikers Who Were Major Flops

4. Vincent Pericard

Cost: Loan Games: 5 Goals: 0

Watching Vincent Pericard stumble and blunder through his Southampton debut, a 5-0 Championship drubbing at the hands of Hull, it was hard to believe that the French-Cameroonian forward had ever been the subject of a documentary entitled "the man who will be worth billions". Pericard had been regarded as one of the brightest teenage talents in Europe back in the early 2000s, a French Under-21 international who was snapped up by Juventus at the age of 17 and played in the Champions League by time he was 19. By the time he joined Southampton, on loan from Stoke in the spring of 2008, a little of that lustre had worn off, not least because of a brief spell in prison for perverting the course of justice/ At 25, though, he still had enough of a sense of potential yet to be fulfilled that the former Juve man was billed as an exciting addition to the Saints squad. Having been a Portsmouth player naturally did not endear Pericard to the Saints fans, but the same could be said for Peter Crouch who quickly won fans round with his goals. Pericard, however, did not have goals to offer. In five games he did not manage to score a single time and never really looked like much of a threat. A year later he was released by Stoke. Ten years after his Champions League debut Pericard would find himself playing for relegation threatened Havant and Waterlooville in the Conference South, England's sixth tier. He didn't score for them either.