Wolves blog: Worst ever XI

Over the last couple of weeks I have brought to you what I considered my Ultimate Wolves XI, writes Wolves blogger Nathan Lloyd.

And now with tongue firmly planted in cheek, here is my Worst Ever Wolves XI.

The eleven I have chosen haven't all been picked simply because they were awful players.

Some are in the team because of how poorly they treated the club or what a waste of money they turned out to be.

My starting XI is illustrated below and I have picked out a few of the culprits who I think deserve a special mention.

Lets kick off with the Ukrainian International, Oleg Luzhny.

My abiding memory of the Luzhny signing was lying by a swimming pool in Kefalonia excitingly awaiting news of our first Premiership signings.

Rumours were rife of potential big names being lured to the club, with even Dennis Bergkamp being touted for one last hurrah.

And what do we get instead? Oleg Luzhny.

My heart sank to the floor and I was miserable for the remainder of the holiday.

For me it was an illustration of the club's obvious lack of ambition in the top flight.

I know Dave Jones complained that he couldn't attract the type of players he wanted to join our ill-fated Premiership journey, but this one really hurt.

In total, Oleg made just 4 Premiership appearances, with another 4 coming in the cup.

He was an used sub for the majority of the season and as much of a joke at Molineux as he was at Highbury.

The left-back position always seems to one of the most difficult positions to get right at the club, just ask Mick McCarthy.

Apart from the excellent Andy Thompson and Denis Irwin, left backs at Molineux haven't exactly been in the Roberto Carlos mould over the years.

Lee Naylor had some obvious quality but he could also disappoint the Wolves fans in equal measure, especially when he insisted that teams like Bolton take their free kicks quickly.

But for me, the worst I have seen don the old gold 'n' black in this position has to be Jamie Clapham. Thank the Lord he is currently on loan at Leeds.

Playing at right back and once branded as the most hated player in football, Kevin Muscat contributed massively to Wolves missing out on promotion in the 2001 – 2002 season.

Playing in his 200th game for the club against Grimsby, and with his contract up at the end of the season, he elbowed Michael Boulding in the face.

He was subsequently sent off (his third dismissal whilst at Wolves), we lost the game and he never played for the club again and after dropping out of an automatic promotion slot, we lost to Norwich in the play offs.

He then failed to make an impact at Glasgow Rangers and is now playing back in his native Australia with Melbourne Victory, where unsurprisingly he became the first player in A-league history to be suspended for three games for violent conduct.

Undoubtedly a talented midfielder, injury prone Darren Anderton arrived at Molineux in the Hoddle era of 2005 -2006.

Sick note actually participated in 20 league matches covering approximately 30 yards a game.

He had a slow, languid style of play, was about 10 years past his best and was picking up a suspected whopping salary.

This combined with his obvious lack of effort didn't exactly make him a fan's favourite.

Racing down the wing, usually after the player who has just robbed him of possession, is Jorge Manuel Rebelo Fernandes, or Silas as we knew him.

The £1 million pound signing from Uniao Leiria was another misshaped piece of Dave Jones ill-fitting Premiership squad.

Making just nine Premiership appearances, the Portuguese international obviously wasn't the player the hype surrounding him led us to believe.

His only two starts came at the start of the Premiership season, when we lost both games and conceded nine goals against Blackburn and Charlton.

He obviously missed his homeland and at the end of that season he joined first division Portuguese side Maritimo on loan.

The majority of Wolves fans were glad to see the back of him, although some still thought felt he deserved another chance.

In 2006, with his Wolves contract up, he joined another Portuguese side Belenenes, on a permanent deal and is reportedly playing good football.

When a club manager joins a new club they like to bring players with them who have helped them gain success at former clubs.

Graham Taylor in his infinite wisdom, decided to bring Tony Daley to Wolves, having managed the winger at Villa and as England boss.

Tony played just 21 league games in 4 injury-strewn seasons at Wolves, having cost the club £1.25 million from Villa.

On his return to Molineux whilst playing for Walsall, he received a torrid time from the majority of the crowd, but had the last laugh as the Saddlers left that day with all three points.

And now Tony is back at the club as the fitness coach. I'm sure there is some irony in that appointment, but I wish Tony all the best.

Henri Camara. If only he could have kicked straight from the beginning of the Premiership campaign, things could have turned out so different for Wolves.

In one of my all-time favourite games at Molineux, he scored his first Wolves goal netting the winner against Leicester, as we came back from a three-goal deficit at halftime to eventually win 4-3.

He then waited a further 20 games before hitting 6 in the last 9 games of the season.

So why is he in my all time Wolves Worst XI?

He somehow won the 2003 – 2004 Wolves player of the season; a title that everybody presumed would go to either Rae or Ince.

Some fans came to Molineux armed with Senegalese flags for our last game of the season against Spurs, to try and convince Camara to stay at Molineux and help us with the fight to regain our Premiership place the following season.

Unfortunately, Henri turned out to be a big name Charlie, who thought he was better than he actually was.

When it became obvious he wasn't go to stay, Jez Moxey, in a very commercially astute move, gave Camara a one-way plane ticket to Glasgow.

Henri thought he was destined to replace the great Henrik Larsson in Celtic fan's affections in a £1 million pound loan deal.

Having failed to convince the Bhoys that he was worthy of cleaning Larsson's boots, let alone fill them, Camara eventually ended up at the big club he had always strived for, Wigan.

And having failed at Wigan, he is now on loan at West Ham and is being kept out of the side by Carlton Cole, a player who was previously sent on loan to Molineux as punishment.

Where as Camara makes the team because he is a talented Judas, Robert Taylor makes the team purely by being (in my opinion) the most inept player to have ever pulled on the old gold 'n' black.

I remember sitting in the John Ireland stand (as it was then) with my brother, Ryan, on a cold December Tuesday evening in 1999 as we destroyed a Man City team 4-1.

We both commented on how their striker, a certain Robert Taylor, ran like his coat hanger was still in his jersey.

And then we watched with abject horror, as Colin Lee proceeded to splash out nearly a million on Temuri Ketsbaia and then followed it up by wasting £1.55 million on a player he described as the 'link player', Robert Taylor.

Taylor was a phenomenal player at Gillingham, with a scoring ratio of 1 in every 2 games

But like so many players who have come to Molineux with big reputations in the past, he quickly became injured and a drain on the club's resources.

Playing a total of nine games in two seasons and scoring no goals, Taylor was farmed out to QPR, Grimsby and back to Gillingham where he was reportedly a shadow of the player they knew and loved.

It was a tough choice between Taylor and Frankowski to form the powder-puff worst Wolves attack.

I always felt a little sympathetic towards "the missing piece of the Hoddle jigsaw".

Tomas arrived at Wolves with an incredible strike rate at both club and international level.

Perhaps more used to the relaxed pace of Spanish football, he struggled to adapt to Stuart Gray's long ball tactics.

Aged 31, it certainly wasn't his fault that Hoddle had paid nearly £1.5m for his services to Spanish second division side Elche.

Despite an obvious commitment to the cause, his confidence ebbed away with every game he failed to hit the net, and the Pole without a goal had his contract terminated earlier this season.

Wolves have had their fair share of donkeys, over-payed has-beens and pre-Madonna's over the years.

Other potential players in the Wolves Worst XI are Leon Clarke, Steve Claridge, Frankowski, Steve Corica, Darren Simkin, Cedric Roussel, Manuel Thetis, Paul Jones (Midfield), Mike Small, David Felgate, Brian Roberts, Kevin Ashley, Jesus Sanjuan, Colin Taylor, Harvard (Go Slow) Flo and Peter Zelem.

Who would make your worst Wolves XI?

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