Huddersfield Town signing Stoke City's Ramadan Sobhi "looked ridiculous" in the end - 2 others were worse though | OneFootball

Ramadan Sobhi was a strange signing at Huddersfield Town, but FLW's Terriers fan pundit feels that there were worse

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…

Huddersfield Town defied all odds when they stayed up in their first Premier League season back in the 2017/18 campaign, but they then followed it up with one of the most lacklustre summer transfer windows ever seen.

One name which stands out from the rest is Ramadan Sobhi, who, despite making 41 Premier League appearances with Stoke City over the previous couple of seasons, didn't make an impact at all at the old John Smith's Stadium.

Huddersfield spent £5.7 million on the Egyptian winger, yet he made just four appearances whilst at the club. He was loaned out for a year and a half to Egyptian Premier League side Al Ahly (where he was before he joined Stoke), before agreeing a permanent move to Pyramids FC for an undisclosed fee in 2020.

His move was a disaster, but was it one of the worst in Huddersfield's history? FLW's Terriers fan pundit, Graeme Rayner, doesn't seem to think so.

Instead, he's put forward the likes of Adama Diakhaby and Isaac Mbenza, who also joined the club in the summer of 2018, to rival Sobhi.

Huddersfield Town fan pundit assesses Ramadan Sobhi's short time at the club

After surviving on 37 points and having scored just 28 goals the prior season, Huddersfield knew that they needed to add some extra attacking flair in the summer of 2018, so in came 21-year-old Sobhi, who had shown glimpses of promise during his time at Stoke.

He left Huddersfield two years later, making just four bench appearances for the club, so it can be easy to label him as one of the worst signings in the club's history, but Rayner only reckons that can be said with hindsight.

"Ramadan Sobhi was one of those signings who, with the benefit of hindsight, looked ridiculous, but at the time, it didn't seem like a bad bit of business," he explained.

"He was a skilful player, just never really showed it for Town, and didn't really get the opportunity to.

"It also seemed like, from my understanding, we were able to either just make a profit, or at least cover the costs with the loan fees we recouped from loaning him out."

Ultimately, bad signings take into account the impact alongside price and expectation, and for £5.7 million, it seemed a fair price for a 21-year-old who was, at the time, at the World Cup with Egypt.

"It was an interesting transfer, but I remember at the time when he signed, a lot of Town fans thought it was exciting, that he could have been a creative influence, perhaps a maverick who could get us somewhere.

"In the end, I don't even remember him playing at all for the club!"

Huddersfield Town fan pundit doesn't even think Ramadan Sobhi was the worst Terriers signing that summer

In Rayner's eyes, at least, Sobhi arrived with some promise, which he could have shown if he'd had been given an extended run in the team, perhaps.

Adama Diakhaby, on the other hand, cost over £3 million more than Sobhi, and was just as impactless over a longer period of time.

Isaac Mbenza was also put forward by Rayner, but at least he still had a five-goal, seven-assist campaign at The Accu Stadium before he departed in 2021.

Diakhaby, however, failed to score in his 48 Terriers appearances, spanning three seasons, and was even allowed to leave the club on loan to fellow Championship side Nottingham Forest during the 2019/20 campaign, where he once again failed to score.

"Town fans will look at the signings of Diakhaby and, maybe to a lesser extent, Isaac Mbenza, and say they were more ridiculous," Rayner said.

"The amount of money we spent on them in comparison to Sobhi, I think, was £5 million, and the other two were close to £10 million each, and anyone who watched Diakhaby play, especially, would be wondering if we had ever seen him play before then, because he was awful.

"So I'd say they were worse signings from that era."

The fact that there's a discussion on who was the worst signing for Huddersfield during the 2018 summer transfer window just adds more emphasis on how badly the decision makers got things wrong ahead of their second season in the Premier League.

Barring a run to the play-off final in 2021/22, the Terriers have dwelled in the Championship's bottom half and now find themselves in League One.

It seems a long way to go until they can find themselves back in the top flight, but if they do end up back there, Kevin Nagle, if he is still in charge, will have to make sure that the recruitment is better than what it was back in 2018.