Derby County have been blessed with some potent goalscorers up top this season in their time of need, with James Collins bagging 13 league goals as the main source of goals in attack.
Free agent signing Dwight Gayle had also helped himself to three goals from six League One games, before injury disaster struck.
Paul Warne will hope Collins, who is back in the first-team fold after injury issues of his own, and the rest of his Derby teammates can get over the line as the Rams try and seal automatic promotion in the matches to come to return to the Championship.
The East Midlands outfit will stray on the side of caution splashing the cash if they do jump back up to the second tier, knowing that they could be suspectible to falling victim to another transfer blunder like this one back in 2007.
Robert Earnshaw's time at Derby
A lot was expected of Robert Earnshaw on his arrival to Pride Park, having netted 17 times from just 50 appearances for West Bromwich Albion before moving to Derbyshire.
Bagging an impressive 27 goals from just 47 Norwich City appearances too before joining the Baggies, it must have been a foregone conclusion in Derby's head that the prolific Welsh attacker would become an instant Rams hero.
The reality would be far more bleak unfortunately, with the £4.6m statement signing – as per TotallyFootball's Transfer Index – going on to score just two times for the Rams before departing for arch-rivals Nottingham Forest.
To add further insult to injury, Earnshaw would go on to be a star for Derby's main nemesis and come back to haunt his former employers with many a goal in matches that followed between the bitter neighbours.
When looking over this disastrous deal in the here and now, taking into account inflation courtesy of TotallyMoney's Transfer Index, the transfer mishap is exposed as being even more of a costly misfire.
Totally Money have taken the 100 most expensive transfers of all time across each season since 1992 in Europe's top five leagues. Armed with plenty of historical financial data they have calculated what footballers of yesteryear would be worth in the present day after taking into account the remarkable rate of inflation.
Robert Earnshaw's transfer value in 2024
If the same ill-fated switch was to happen today, the Welshman would demand a far more substantial £11.9m fee to win his services – as per Totally Money.
Looking at Derby's record arrivals, that would see the Rams dud surge to the very top of the list – beating Matej Vydra to the golden medal spot in the process, who is far more well-liked by those in Derbyshire to this day for notching up 27 goals from 80 appearances.
1. Matej Vydra
€9.4m (£8m)
2. Krystian Bielik
€8.2m (£7m)
3. Bradley Johnson
€8.1m (£6.9m)
4. Tom Ince
€6.7m (£5.7m)
5. Martyn Waghorn
€5.6m (£4.8m)
Earnshaw flopping at Pride Park likely wasn't helped by Derby finishing rock bottom of the Premier League during his only season there in truth, rooted to the foot of the table with a still record low points haul of 11.
Describing his Rams ordeal as a "difficult" time in his career during a tell-all interview with DerbyshireLive journalist Chris Watson in 2018, the now-retired striker will take some solace in the fact he managed to bounce back with Forest even if that makes the failure from a Rams perspective even harder to stomach.
No doubt, Derby failing to win promotion up to the Championship this campaign would be even more sickening with Warne keeping his fingers crossed that Collins and Co can continue firing on all cylinders.
The Derby dud who now plays in a league 14 places below English football
Derby County supporters will have forgotten about this dire flop’s existence.
ByKelan SarsonMar 27, 2024