Nigel Martyn says Leeds United made a mistake paying £12m to sign player from Liverpool

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Leeds United splashed the cash in the early noughties and of course, it led to the club’s administration in 2003 and eventual relegation in 2004. Something the club have failed to recover from.

The heights of the Champions League, a win over AC Milan at Elland Road and Dom Matteo’s header in the San Siro came in the midst of Peter Ridsdale’s running of the club, spending cash Leeds didn’t have.

Failure to qualify for Europe left Leeds struggling financially and eventually, could not pay what had been spent. Leeds had to sell after spending fortunes on players, including the signing of striker Robbie Fowler.

Leeds spent almost £40m on three players in the summer of 2001, with £12m on Fowler. More than that went on Robbie Keane and around £10m went on Seth Johnson, one of the worst-ever Leeds signings.

• READ MORE: Nigel Martyn shares how Everton was his preferred destination over Leeds

Martyn criticises signing of Fowler from Liverpool for £12m

Fowler is considered one of England’s best-ever finishers. At Liverpool, the England star was electric, scoring an incredible amount of goals, a total of 171 in 330 games for his boyhood club on Merseyside.

At Leeds, he still managed 14 goals in 33 games but he only lasted a short spell before joining Man City in 2002 for £6m. An instant loss of £6m for Leeds, and Martyn told Undr The Cosh it was a bad signing.

“It’s frustrating [administration],” he said. “As players you’re not necessarily aware of what’s happening. We were just turning up, training, playing, that’s it. The thinking was we had got to third in the League, we want to challenge Manchester United and Arsenal and to do that we needed to buy players.

We’d spent a lot, we bought Robbie Fowler but you’ve got to ask why are Liverpool selling to a rival? Great footballer, great footballer. But it was a lot of money [£12m]. I’ve been on the receiving end of Robbie many times in a Liverpool shirt, he could score goals for fun,” Martyn continued.

“But he came to us with a hip injury and his mobility wasn’t as good as it could have been. We saw in flashes of how good he was, in a Leeds shirt. But he wasn’t as mobile as he was and Liverpool saw that.”

The most-expensive signings of the Peter Ridsdale era at Leeds

Rio Ferdinand obviously tops the tree, Leeds spending a fortune to land the England defender from West Ham. A proper signing and a decent financial move given Leeds made a profit when he left the club.

Keane, Olivier Dacourt, Johnson, Dom Matteo, Michael Bridges and plenty more cost the club a fortune. But it was Ferdinand that tops the tree, followed by Keane and Fowler, and then French ace Dacourt.

Ultimately, Leeds have failed to recover. Only three seasons in the Premier League and failure to get anywhere near an established top-half Premier League side shows Leeds are struggling to recover.