When Kostas Mitroglou bombed at Craven Cottage in 2014, somewhere in France, Steve Marlet must have breathed a sigh of relief.
For 13 years, the attacker was laden with the dubious distinction of being probably our worst-ever purchase. And it was more than a tad unfair.
He became our final signing of the 2001 summer window - for a then-record £11.5m fee. And that’s where his struggles began.
The price tag was more than a third of the record fee paid by a British club at that time - the £28.1m Manchester United paid for Juan Sebastian Veron that same summer. Fulham were breathing rare air financially.
It prompted ideas of Marlet combining with countryman Louis Saha to create a devastating front two. But in truth, he’d not done anything to suggest an eight-figure fee was appropriate.
But so keen was Tigana to land his man, he convinced the club to nearly double its initial offer. The shockwaves from the deal would reverberate for years, ending in a courtroom battle between chairman Mohammed Al Fayed and Tigana later down the line, with the former accusing the latter of causing the club to pay over the odds. Fayed even witheld some of the fee from Lyon for a time, before being forced to honour the terms.
Whether or not there were dark forces at play, the deal - on the fact of it - stank. Marlet wasn’t even necessarily a striker. He’d made his name as a right winger at Auxurre, before putting in a career-best season at Lyon as they nearly made the last eight of the Champions League. But an out-and-out marksman he was not. And it’s not as if he was a youngster still discovering his best position; he was 27 years old. Disasterous.
11 goals in 55 appearances is, on the face of it, not so disasterous. But when you factor in the fee and the fact it all came across a four-year period during which eh spent two seasons on loan with Marseille, it doesn’t look great.
More than half of those goals game in 33 appearances during his first season. He opened his account with a consolation goal at Craven Cottage in a 3-2 defeat to Manchester United, eight games and three months into his stay - albeit it upon return from five weeks out with a fractured leg.
Meanwhile, Barry Hayles - tipped by everyone to be the man Marlet was replacing - had eight league goals to hs name as he took to the top flight like a duck to water.
I remember travelling to Filbert Street to see his first start in white. It was late September and my dad and I were giddy with excitement when he was named in a starting XI alongside Saha. It was a 0-0 draw, which just about sums it all up.
Marlet would complete Tigana’s summer of Premier League preparation, despite reports he was targeting one Pep Guardiola, who was a free agent following his departure from Barcelona. What could’ve been.
Will we break our record again on this deadline day? If we do, let’s hope they fare a bit better.
Completely agree that Steve Marlet was unfairly treated as a scapegoat. He was brought in as striker but never was. He was fast and had a very distinctive way of running, he used to flick his feet up, like David Platt. Personally I liked him, but must have suffered a lot from self doubt after being consistently attacked by Mo. Who knows if there were insider dealing between Tigana and the agent, but Mo was v unhappy. Shame as he was a good player.