F365 Top Ten: Best Buys Of The Season

After slating the ten worst buys of the year, it's time to praise the ten best bits of business in the Premier League this season. Just the one Big Four player and Newcastle get a mention. Crikey...


10 - Amr Zaki
Oh he's been toilet since November, is only on loan (yeah, we're breaking our own rules - what's it to you?) and has a rather relaxed attitude to timekeeping, but boy he was good before that. Eight goals in his first 11 league games had everyone - including the scouts of the European big boys - rubbing their eyes and wondering where the hell Steve Bruce had found this one. How we all laughed when Bruce pointed to the FIFA rankings (based on international goals-to-games ratio) that said Zaki was the best striker in the world, then how we stopped laughing when he started banging them in. Anonymous for months now, but deserves a mention for that electric early-season form.


9 - Peter Crouch
Weird season down on the south coast. After starting the campaign with arguably the best strikeforce outside the top four, hopes were high of a European charge, but since the departure of Redknapp, Diarra and Defoe it's been a relegation fight. And how much worse would it have been without Crouch? Perhaps £10million for 12 goals is a little disappointing, but using crude, flawed and inexact logic, Crouch's goals have gained 11 points for Pompey, without which they would now be stone bottom.


8 - Andriy Arshavin
Last summer, as Arshavin's agent Dennis Lachter managed the impressive achievement of standing out as one of the more despicable members of his profession by hawking his man across the continent, all the talk was of a man who went missing when it mattered. 'Would he be able to stand the physical rigours of Blighty?' we mused. Well, based on the evidence since January, it's an emphatic 'Yes'.

It's worth noting that Arsenal haven't lost a game that Arshavin has started, and without his clinical intervention would have been embarrassed at Anfield last month. Would be higher on this list if his contribution had actually led to any tangible success this campaign, but he may prove to be one of the most astute buys Wenger has ever made.


7 - Robinho
Rubbish away from home, apparently shoddy attitude, in the papers for, shall we say, the wrong reasons, but the Premier League would have been a duller place this season without him. For all the stretches of anonymity, there have been some dazzling moments of skill - skill that few others in the division, let alone in the Manchester City side, are capable of.

His was also an important signing for ADUG's hopes of world domination. While it's true that Robinho was simply desperate to leave Real Madrid last summer and would have gone anywhere for the right coin, it proves that City have the muscle to buy players of world renown. Kaka may have turned his nose up, but if they are serious about challenging the top four cartel, then more signings like Mr De Souza are required.


6 - Marouane Fellaini
'Who the f**k is he?' was this correspondent's reaction upon hearing that Everton had splashed £15million on a 20-year-old Belgian who looked like Screech from Saved By The Bell. Wrong we were proved, with Fellaini contributing an impressive nine goals from midfield, and perhaps most importantly taking some of the burden from Tim Cahill. In a season when Everton have been so short of strikers - often having to operate without one - Fellaini's contributions have been invaluable.


5 - Sebastien Bassong
If there is a small, tiny, pinprick of shining light at Newcastle this season, it is this young Frenchman. Signed ostensibly as 'one for the future' last summer, Bassong was quickly pressed into action, initially at left-back, but has since established himself as United's most consistent performer in the middle of defence. While that may sound like a back-handed compliment, it really isn't, and if Newcastle do go down then Bassong will be one of the only men who can leave with some degree of pride.


4 - Luka Modric
Apparently rejected by Arsene Wenger on the basis that he was too lightweight, Modric's early-season form looked to have confirmed those fears. First Juande Ramos, then Harry Redknapp didn't seem to know what to do with him - centre midfielder? Support striker? Free role? Then, 'Huzzah' said 'Arry. 'Why not play him in a nominal left-sided position joining attacks from the flank?' As it turns out, not a bad idea at all, and Modric has been the creative fulcrum of Tottenham's post-October success.


3 - James Beattie
A match made in heaven, this. It took Tony Pulis two stabs at it, but after the failure of Dave Kitson, he cracked the perfectly simple plan of procuring a battering ram up front to convert the chances that Stoke's somewhat robust style of play created. Whether both Beattie and Stoke will be found out next season remains to be seen, but for this campaign this was an absolutely spiffing bit of business, what what.


2 - Mark Schwarzer
Ask a Middlesbrough fan what exactly has gone wrong this season and you could be there for a while, but surely a massive factor in their demise has been their failure to replace one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League.

While much of Fulham's success this season has been based on the rock solid, intimidating and Easter Island statue-esque presence of Brede Hangeland, their exemplary defensive record can be largely attributed to the air of calm assuredness that Schwarzer exudes. Fulham have conceded the fewest goals of anyone outside the top three (Arsenal's spanking on Sunday pushed their 'GA' column above the Cottagers'), and with Schwarzer an ever-present and keeping clean sheets in over half of those games, it doesn't take a genius to work out where they have gone right.


1 - Wilson Palacios
Given the appalling events of the weekend, this may look like a sympathy vote, but it really isn't. In fact, that Palacios has been living with the knowledge that his brother was in captivity for 18 months makes his performances all the more remarkable.

Palacios has been the sort of player that Spurs have needed ever since Edgar Davids left - someone with some toughness to allow the rest of the midfield to play. And boy has it worked. You could argue that Palacios is perhaps the sole reason for Tottenham's latter-season form, given that his industry allows the likes of Aaron Lennon and Luka Modric ahead of him to create and attack in the safe knowledge that they have some protection behind them.

Spurs have spent ridiculous amounts on duff players over the last few years, but £14million for Palacios could turn out to be a bargain.

Nick Miller