"Huge waste of money" - £2.5m signing named among Birmingham City's worst ever | OneFootball

The Argentinian striker's time at St Andrew's is best forgotten

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Most clubs have been there: forked out a hefty sum for a top player who turns out to be nothing but a dud.

Every team in the EFL will have their own horror stories about how a highly-coveted striker failed to find the back of the net, or about an injury-prone star who never touched turf in their colours, and Birmingham City are no different.

While the Blues are happily splashing the cash this summer in the hope of getting back to the Championship at the first time of asking, there have been times when the West Midlands outfit have come up short with their business in the past and left them with egg on their face.

With that in mind, we spoke to Football League World’s Birmingham City fan pundit Mike Gibbs about one player who failed miserably after making the move to St Andrew’s with big expectations surrounding him.

Luciano Figueroa fails to live up to the hype after Birmingham City switch

It’s the summer of 2003, Roger Federer is winning his first-ever Wimbledon title and Birmingham City are celebrating a mid-table finish in the Premier League; what a time to be alive.

With Steve Bruce at the helm, the Blues are looking to build on their success with a goal-getter who can fire them into the top half of the table, so who better than a player who has netted 17 times in Argentina the season before?

The early warning signs were already there with Figueroa, as the transfer rumbled on and on, as Spanish side Osasuna claimed they had also agreed a deal to sign the frontman, leading to FIFA stepping in to confirm his move to the Midlands.

And how they wish they had let the La Liga outfit claim the spoils in that particular dogfight, with City getting scant return from that reported £2.5 million fee, with Figueroa's time in England turning into something of a farce, as Gibbs remembers.

FLW's Blues fan pundit said: “The one that springs to mind for me is from a good few years ago now, but it was Luciano Figueroa.

“We signed him in 2003, which was quite a bit of money at the time, and he very much came in as an unknown player.

“He wasn’t a household name, but he came in with huge expectations, and he had been very prolific in Argentina, so there was expectation that he would be God’s gift.

“It turned out horrifically, he barely made it into the team, disappeared into the reserves and was sold not long after, so that’s the one that springs to mind.

“It was a big amount of money at the time, and it turned out to be a huge waste of money.”

Luciano Figueroa’s Birmingham City career ends abruptly

After the uproar that his signing caused, you would have expected the striker to be ready to make up for lost time once his signing had been sanctioned, but you would be very wrong indeed.

Close to half an hour of a League Cup tie against Blackpool and a three-minute cameo against Portsmouth in the Premier League later, and things were already taking a turn for the worse, with Bruce unwilling to field him due to his physique and stature.

So before the year had even come to an end, Figueroa was off, as he flew back over the Atlantic to join Cruz Azul in Mexico, with Blues having very little to show for their seven-figure expenditure.

Co-owner David Sullivan said at the time: "We've torn the contract up so he's eligible to leave. It's a shame but these things happen.

"Steve didn't think he was good enough or big enough to play in the Premiership and you have to respect your manager's judgment.

"Maybe had he got in the team and scored a couple of goals things might have turned round but it wasn't to be."

As wastes of money go, Figueroa has to be right up there for City, but Bruce must have known what he was doing, as he led the club to a top-half finish in the top flight, with a certain Mikael Forssell doing the business in the final third instead.