The hitmen who didn’t quite cut it at international level

In light of in-form Sunderland striker Darren Bent’s omission from Don Fabio’s latest England squad, Spoiler correspondent Alex Perry has compiled a list of English strikers who failed to sparkle on the international stage. Who knows, Darren, if you keep “banging them in” you may get a chance to avoid joining this list…

Chris Sutton
410 club appearances / 88 goals
1 England appearance / 0 goals

Alan Shearer’s other half in Blackburn Rovers’ deadly strike force, Sutton was the joint top-scorer with Dion Dublin and 18-year-old Michael Owen in the 1997/98 season, and thus a shoo-in for the upcoming World Cup squad, surely? Well, no, because Sutton had decided a few months before that playing for an experimental England ‘B’ team wasn’t for him and Glenn Hoddle decided Sutton’s single goalless cap in an England shirt was enough.

Robbie Fowler
409 club appearances / 172 goals (and counting)
26 England appearances / 8 goals

You couldn’t pick up a newspaper in the nineties without reading about “England’s most natural finisher”, scoring 30-plus goals three seasons on the bounce. Fowler went to Euro ‘96 in the form of his life, but he was never going to unsettle the Shearer/Sheringham partnership that did so well in that tournament.

Persistent injuries, the “Spice Boy” lifestyle and controversial goal celebrations meant Fowler was restricted to just 26 England appearances and just one competitive goal - against Albania in a World Cup qualifier.

Matthew Le Tissier
443 club appearances / 162 goals
8 England appearances / 0 goals

A goal in every two-and-a-half games is an unbelievable return

The least frugal investments in the beautiful game

With the news that Kaka may substitute hopes of silverware and European football for the chance to play in the Premier League*, The Spoiler has considered the top ten biggest wastes of money in Premier League history.

*We’re not saying Kaka won’t live up to a £100m price tag, but… actually yes, we are saying that. No one could possibly live up to such a ridiculous fee.

Andriy Shevchenko (£30m)
AC Milan to Chelsea, 2006
AC Milan’s second highest top scorer of all time put away 127 league goals in less than 200 starts for the Rossoneri, but managed just nine in two years at the Bridge. He was months away from his 30th birthday when he moved to England, which made the size of the fee even more alarming. Chelsea’s tails were firmly between their legs when they resold him to Milan last summer for an undisclosed fee - unlikely to be in excess of £5m.

Gaizka Mendieta (£29m)
Valencia to Lazio, 2001
Following an impressive spell with Valencia where he lead the side to back-to-back Champions League Finals, the two-time European Midfielder of the Year went to Lazio. He lasted just one season in Italy, scoring no goals. A loan spell back to Barcelona ensued, and then Middlesbrough, for whom he only made 26 league starts in three seasons before being released.

Juan Sebastian Veron (£28.1m)
Lazio to Manchester United, 2001
Man United broke the British transfer record in 2001 after Veron’s instrumental role in Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Lazio side (which won the league, the Coppa Italia and the Italian Super Cup the previous year). Although United made the mistake of bringing the Argentine to England, Chelsea’s decision to pay £15m after seeing his incompatibility with the English game was even