7 of Sir Alex Ferguson’s most forgettable signings

Sir Alex Ferguson made 105 signings during his 26 years in charge of Manchester United – and it’s fair to say that some are more memorable than others.

From Eric Cantona to Dong Fanzhou, and Cristiano Ronaldo to Bebe, Fergie’s most disastrous signings have become almost as famous as his most inspired. But what about the players that didn’t leave much of an impression either way?

Here are seven Fergie signings that may have just slipped your memory.

Tony Coton

Coton is well known for his time at Manchester City, for whom he made nearly 200 appearances, but it’s much easier to forget that he also spent six months at Old Trafford, during which time he never played a single competitive game and only made the substitutes’ bench once before hastily being moved on to Sunderland, remarkably for a profit.

Neil Whitworth 

Ferguson may have thought he had uncovered a gem when poaching 18-year-old centre-back from Third Division Wigan in 1990.

But Whitworth was never likely to oust Gary Pallister or Steve Bruce in the first team. In truth, he couldn’t cut it at Old Trafford and made just one appearance for the Red Devils, nine months after signing.

He actually stayed on the books for four years, though, spending time out on loan with four clubs before signing for Kilmarnock permanently in 1994.

Pat McGibbon

McGibbon was plucked from Northern Irish club Portadown in 1992. But his first appearance for United turned out to be his last as he endured a debut similar to Jonathan Woodgate’s nightmare at Real Madrid and was never to be seen again.

In a pretty innocuous-looking League Cup tie against York City in 1995, McGibbon was sent off and United lost 3-0.

Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a future at Old Trafford for the Northern Irish centre-back after this disaster.

Brian Carey

You’d have thought Fergie might have learned his lesson by the time he looked at McGibbon considering he already had an Irish centre-back on the books who he was yet to give a single appearance to despite signing from Cork City three years earlier.

Said centre-back was Brian Carey, who would later play in the Premier League for Leicester but was twice loaned out to Wrexham during his four years at Old Trafford, going on to spend much of his career at the Racecourse Ground before taking over as manager.

READ: Ranking Manchester United’s 21 weirdest Premier League signings

Giuliano Maiorana

OK, there’s a bit of a theme here that you’re more likely to have forgotten…