Southampton and AFC Bournemouth saw his class, while QPR nearly recruited the Celtic cult star.
The West London team, which was funded by the now-controversial Tony Fernandes, set out to attract players who had already made a lot of waves in English and European football in order to earn a sizable salary while the team sought to re-establish itself as one of the top 20 clubs in the nation.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to identify only a small number of these transactions that ultimately proved beneficial for Rangers. Considerable overspending caused the team to incur enormous debt, which in turn hindered their ability to mount immediate challenges for promotion after returning to the Championship ahead of the 2015–16 season. It also denotes a period of time when the Hoops were unable to sign several seasoned and highly regarded players who would go on to establish themselves elsewhere in the Premier League. On this specific front, it’s safe to argue that one name sticks out more than the others.
This is in the form of Artur Boruc, a custodian for Poland who became a top target for Mark Hughes in W12 in the summer of 2012. After moving from Legia Warsaw to Parkhead in 2005, the custodian became a key member of SPFL powerhouse Celtic. A year later, Boruc won three consecutive league titles with the Bhoys in his first three seasons with the club after garnering national recognition for an outstanding performance against Manchester United at Old Trafford in the UEFA Champions League.
The goalie spent two seasons with Fiorentina after leaving Glasgow in 2010, however in the summer of 2012 he became a free agent. As a result, Boruc was left on the free agent market. Hughes was reportedly looking for a new custodian, and the 65-year-old international disclosed how close he was to joining the Londoners before they signed Julio Cesar, a Brazilian international and former UEFA Champions League winner with Inter Milan, which turned out to be a disastrous deal for all parties.
“I’m fit and available and a little bit surprised to be in this situation following two good seasons in Serie A with Fiorentina,” Boruc had stated at the time. “I had other offers that didn’t feel right at the time, and I was offered an extension with Fiorentina, but I thought it was time for a change. In fact, a few weeks later, he was linked to a possible transfer to Everton. In September 2012, he finally made his first-ever move to the Premier League with recently promoted Southampton, originally on a temporary contract. “I’m realising my dreams. After relocating to St Mary’s, Boruc declared, “I’ve been talking about this for a long time, and finally I’m here in the Premier League.”
Boruc would eventually establish himself as Saints’ starting custodian despite having a very uneven start to life on the South Coast, primarily after Mauricio Pochettino took Nigel Adkins’ position. Boruc’s luck at the club began to run out after he gave up to Asmir Begovic, the custodian for Stoke City, after just 13 seconds in November 2013. He then suffered a hand injury and returned in the final weeks of the season to help Saints finish eighth. Boruc had previously helped the team have the best start to a top-flight campaign under the Uruguayan in 2013–14. However, Boruc would be loaned out to AFC Bournemouth under Eddie Howe after Fraser Forster arrived at St Mary’s during Ronald Koeman’s first transfer window.
Before signing on a free transfer ahead of the team’s inaugural Premier League season, he maintained goal for the great majority of the Cherries’ historic 2014–15 promotion-winning season, making the initial temporary agreement ultimately a masterstroke. For an additional five years, the 6’4 man remained a stalwart at the Vitality Stadium, helping the Dorset team accomplish many firsts in their recent history, including a joint-club record placing of ninth in the Premier League in 2016–17. His international class demonstrated an overall record of 67 clean sheets in 160 top league matches, raising the issue of how his and QPR’s trajectory may have changed if Hughes had signed him in 2012.
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