Managers raiding their previous club for players they fancy are commonplace but when Harry Redknapp brought Ricardo Fuller from Fratton Park to St Mary’s, he came with a fair amount of “baggage”.  It was bad enough that he was a Pompey discard – not fit for Premiership purposes – but he had a history of knee problems and had just failed a medical at Sunderland.

Redknapp’s boast that he was buying “a good player for a very minimal outlay” – of £90,000 – served to rub home the point that Southampton had just been relegated and their Premier League forward-line that had featured James Beattie, Kevin Phillips and Peter Crouch was history.

The manager was rebuilding for second-tier football.

Fuller had “proved himself at this level,” Redknapp reasoned, “and he will be a real handful. No one has an easy game against him. He is strong and aggressive and I’m sure he will do OK for us.”

Such confidence initially looked misplaced and Ricardo even received abuse from some quarters. It didn’t help that his languid style could give the impression that he wasn’t trying. Ricardo counters “I am Jamaican” and cites his 63 caps, with 11 goals scored, as evidence of his “determination and commitment”.

As that commitment became more apparent at St Mary’s, he was able to see off his critics.

When Redknapp left, the incoming George Burley soon loaned Ricardo to Ipswich. Burley preferred a front-pairing of Grzegorz Rasiak and Peter Madsen, with Dexter Blackstock and Kenwyne Jones backing up. Even so, Ricardo returned to score six times in the last six games. Not surprisingly, he started the next season upfront with Rasiak, but after one League game and coming on as a sub in the Carling Cup, he was sold to Stoke. He top-scored for Stoke in the next four seasons, during which time they were promoted to, and became established in, the Premiership. And Ricardo certainly established himself as a top-flight striker, exceeding the expectations of many during what he proudly describes as his “great career” at Stoke. The arrival of James Beattie did not knock him off the top perch, but Kenwyne Jones outscored him in 2010-11.

Then, following a season in which he hardly started and scored no domestic goals, he moved on, in the summer of 2012, to Championship Charlton, where he’d had a trial 12 years before. This time around, he had a one-year contract with an option for another year. Despite his being fairly regular in 2012-13, Charlton did not take up the option. So, in the summer of 2013, Ricardo was a free agent, training and keeping fit for “when the call comes.” It duly came from Championship Blackpool. A year later he moved to Millwall and then announced his retirement after a season at Oldham. But in January 2019 he came out of retirement to play for Nantwich in the Northern Premier League aged 39.