Celtic cult hero remains one of Derby County's most pointless transfers: View | OneFootball

Despite being a cult hero with Scottish giants Celtic, defender Efe Ambrose didn't enjoy the same luck in English football with Derby County.

With the Rams battling for Premier League promotion during the 2018/19 season, Frank Lampard brought the central defender to the club on a free in a bid to bolster their squad.

However, Ambrose struggled at Pride Park, and it's fair to say he didn't make the desired impact in the East Midlands.

It was a move that proved pointless for all parties involved, and Ambrose's move to the club will go down as one of Derby County's most pointless signings.

Efe Ambrose spent the first-half of the season with Scottish club Hibernian, but he exercised an option in his contract which allowed him to leave in January 2019.

This meant that he was now a free agent, and he joined Derby County in February 2019, initially on trial.

Ambrose did enough during his trial at the club to impress Frank Lampard, and he was given a short-term deal until the end of the season as centre-back cover for the likes of Richard Keogh and Chelsea loanee Fikayo Tomari.

Despite this, Keogh and Tomari featured in every match for the Rams after Ambrose's arrival, and this meant he found himself quite a way down the pecking order at Pride Park.

In total, Ambrose would pull on a Derby County shirt just twice, both coming for the club's under-23 side in Premier League 2, and he failed to make a matchday squad for the first-team, let alone play a first-team game.

It proved a pointless move, and in hindsight, surely the player would have been better off staying at Hibernian, where he was a regular starter for the club in the Scottish Premiership.

After failing to make a first-team appearance for the club, Ambrose was released upon the expiry of his short-term deal with the Rams, with the club just missing out on Premier League promotion after losing the play-off final to Aston Villa.

All in all, it proved a silly career move from Ambrose, and a waste of a wage for Derby, so it will certainly go down as one of the most pointless signings in Derby County's history.

After departing Pride Park, Ambrose remained a free agent until February 2020, when he returned north of the border to join Livingston.

After just over a year at Livingston, he was on the move again, this time joining Scottish Premiership side St Johnstone for the 2021/22 season.

However, he found playing time hard to come by at McDiarmid Park, and was loaned to Scottish Championship side Dunfermline Athletic for the remainder of the season.

The 2022/23 season marked another fresh start for the ex-Derby County man, and he was on the move again, this time joining Greenock Morton. Just one season followed there, before dropping down to the third-tier of Scottish football with Queen of the South for the current campaign.

At 35, Ambrose is still playing professional football, but playing for Queen of the South in Scottish League One is a long way from his days at Celtic, where he regularly lifted silverware and played Champions League football.

Whilst the Nigerian is a cult hero at Celtic, he'll be remembered at Derby for being a huge flop, and ultimately, was a completely pointless signing for the Rams.