As Premier League clubs indulge in record-breaking transfers on deadline day, we look back at Coventry City’s five most expensive players, a list that is likely to remain unchanged for several years to come.
Craig Bellamy: Possibly the right man, probably the wrong club and certainly the wrong time. Having banked a hefty cheque for Robbie Keane, City went looking to repeat the success they had had in buying a young striker from a club outside of the Premier League.
Bellamy’s career since then shows the quality of the player but the Sky Blues, without Keane and Gary McAllister, were a shadow of the team they had been just a year before and he was unable to stem the tide of relegation that was about to engulf the club.
Robbie Keane: The only unqualifed success among the list, perhaps because of what he represented when he arrived for £6m from Wolves in August 1999.
Keane had been watched by all the big clubs and although it may have been too soon for a move to Old Trafford or Highbury his switch to Highfield Road was a genuine coup.
A year later, of course, he was gone with Inter Milan weighing out £13m for his services. If only we had negotiated a season-long loan then perhaps the whole history of the club may have changed?
Lee Hughes: Signed for £5m in the summer following City’s relegation from the Premier League and with Bellamy off to Newcastle, Hughes never looked right in a Sky Blues shirt after ending his association with West Brom.
To be fair he did what was asked of him in his only full season with the club, scoring 14 goals, but CCFC were falling aprt financially around him and he made a cut-price return to the Hawthorns just over a year after arriving.
Mustapha Hadji: Signed for £4m just before Keane’a arrival, Hadji was part of the ‘Entertainers’ side that won some thrilling home matches in the 1999/2000 season but was found badly wanting when asked to take on more responsibility the season after.
Two good displays against Aston Villa earned him a move to Villa Park where he again flattered to deceive.
Viorel Moldovan: Moldovan, signed for £3.25m from Zurich side Grasshoppers in January 1998, made a big impact on the City side of the time but not by dint of his own performances.
His arrival sparked into life the club’s other strikers, Darren Huckerby in particular, as Gordon Strachan’s side went on winning streak in both the league and FA Cup that ended prematurely in the quarter-finals against Sheffield United with Moldovan missing some good chances.
The Romanian went on to score against England in that summer’s World Cup and was quickly sold on for a small profit bythe Sky Blues.
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