West Brom will always rue free agent swoop for 51-cap international - He flopped even harder with Fulham | OneFootball

The Baggies made a horrendous transfer decision by bringing Pascal Zuberbuhler to the club.

Over the years, West Brom supporters have seen their fair share of transfer flops.

Naturally, in football, there will be signings that inevitably don’t work out, with fans left scratching their heads as to why the club’s hierarchy recruited them in the first place.

This happened in the goalkeeping department, as Pascal Zuberbuhler proved to be far from a popular figure at The Hawthorns during his very short stay at the club.

Consistently booed and jeered for poor performances, the 51-cap Switzerland international would go down as one of Albion’s worst-ever signings, while his fortunes didn’t change years later when he returned to England with Fulham.

Pascal Zuberbuhler’s dreadful spell at West Brom

Pascal Zuberbuhler arrived from Basel to The Hawthorns on a free transfer in 2006, and by the time he left a year later, Albion fans must have felt like the Black Country outfit should have been paid themselves for taking him off of their hands.

There was original optimism for the addition as the shot-stopper came to the Baggies off the back of an impressive World Cup campaign that had seen him keep four clean sheets in four games, as the Swiss went out on penalties to Ukraine in the round of 16.

Zuberbuhler began the season in between the sticks under Bryan Robson, starting the opening 15 games of their second tier campaign, but ultimately, he proved he wasn’t anywhere near the level required to compete for a promotion-chasing side.

His performances were so poor that Baggies fans consistently booed and even jeered the goalkeeper whenever he managed to catch the ball, with it proving to be a toxic relationship that neither party really needed.

The now 54-year-old found himself pushed out of the team by Robson's replacement, Tony Mowbray, due to the perception that he was unpopular with the fans, before being made available for loan heading into the winter window of 2006.

He would eventually depart B71 in February 2007, signing for Neuchatel Xamax in his native Switzerland on a free transfer, while Dean Kiely arrived to the Black Country and was a much safer pair of hands.

West Brom had been blessed with some wonderful goalkeepers over the last two decades, so when Zuberbuhler failed to make the grade, it was unsurprising to see Albion supporters vent such hostile frustration towards their number one.

The Swiss shot-stopper was coming into a side that had previously been graced with the dependable figures of Russell Hoult, Chris Kirkland and Tomasz Kuszczak, so it was always going to be an uphill battle to be successful if he didn’t make an immediate impact.

In that bad of a spell, Birmingham Live voted Zuberbuhler as the worst goalkeeper Albion have had over the last 20 years.

Pascal Zuberbuhler extended his torrid English spell at Fulham

Zuberbuhler would go on to make 51 league appearances for Neuchatel Xamax, where he won promotion with them back to the Swiss top-flight, before returning to England and linking up with Fulham and Roy Hodgson in the summer of 2008. Hodgson knew the keeper from his time as Switzerland manager and signed a one-year deal after impressing on a trial in West London.

However, he wouldn’t ever be a regular presence in goal for the Cottagers, making his first and only appearance for the club in a League Cup match during his opening term.

His professionalism would earn him another year's extension as he remained number two to Mark Schwarzer during the 2009/10 season, before agreeing a further 12-month stay the following season. However, in that campaign, he didn’t even make the 25-man Premier League squad.

Making just a solitary appearance, Zuberbuhler retired from playing at the end of that term, bringing the curtain down on a truly awful time in England.