Middlesbrough supporters will want to forget the signing of striker Ashley Fletcher from West Ham United.
Middlesbrough will look to contend for promotion from the Championship next season.
Boro lost out on the play-offs this season due to an uneven performance, but a run of only one defeat in their final 12 games has given fans plenty of hope for the summer.
Last summer, the club followed a policy of signing younger or unknown players, and while it took some time for the newcomers to settle in, they have already found their feet at Championship level, with striker Emmanuel Latte Lath improving the most.
After recovering from injury in February, Latte Lath finished the season in fantastic form, and Boro will hope he will be the man to lead them to promotion next season after scoring an outstanding 18 goals in 36 games in his debut year in England.
Latte Lath is the latest striker to thrive at the Riverside Stadium, following in the footsteps of David Nugent, Cristhian Stuani, Britt Assombalonga, Chuba Akpom, and Cameron Archer. However, not all of Boro’s striker signings have been as successful.
Boro fans will be anxious to forget the signing of Ashley Fletcher, who joined the
In July 2017, the club was acquired from West Ham United for £6.5 million.
Middlesbrough’s big-money Ashley Fletcher purchase will be seen as a disaster. Fletcher began his career with Manchester United, and after a successful loan spell with Barnsley in the 2015-16 season, during which he helped the Tykes win promotion from League One, he was offered a new contract at Old Trafford, but he declined and moved to West Ham in July 2016.
After scoring just once in 20 appearances for the Hammers, Fletcher left the London Stadium the following summer to join Boro.
Boro’s decision to pay £6.5 million for Fletcher aroused eyebrows, but it was typical of the club’s splurging this summer following relegation from the Premier League under Garry Monk.
Fletcher struggled to get into the starting lineup ahead of fellow high-profile signing Assombalonga, thus he spent the second half of the 2017-18 season on loan at Sunderland, where he scored two goals in 16 games as the Black Cats were relegated from the Championship.
The striker was a fixture for Boro for the next three seasons after returning from his loan spell at Sunderland, and while he had a good season in 2019-20, he failed to repay the club’s substantial investment in him.
Despite his poor form, Boro offered Fletcher a new contract in the 2020-21 season, with then-manager Neil Warnock characterizing the opportunity as “fabulous,” but he declined, and he left the club abruptly in April 2021, with four games remaining.
Fletcher stated that his departure was “sudden and not how I wanted to leave,” and while he stressed that he had “no bad words to say” about Warnock, there is no denying that it was a contentious manner to finish his time on Teesside.
In total, Fletcher scored 28 goals and registered 11 assists in 109 appearances for Boro, and owner Steve Gibson must have been quite irritated that the club
were unable to reclaim any of the transfer price they spent for him, and were dissatisfied by his lack of effect on the field.
The striker then made a surprise move to Watford, who had just been promoted to the Premier League, in May 2021, but he only scored two goals in six appearances for the Hornets, and he spent the majority of his time at Vicarage Road on loan.
Following stints with the New York Red Bulls and Wigan Athletic, Fletcher made a temporary transfer to Sheffield Wednesday in July, reuniting with his old Watford manager, Xisco Munoz.
However, Fletcher’s stint at Hillsborough was a catastrophe; he failed to score in 28 games for the Owls, and he dropped
In the second half of the season, he fell out of favour with Danny Rohl.
It’s difficult not to sympathize with Fletcher, and his lack of confidence was clear during his loan spell at Wednesday, but he has failed to live up to the promise he showed early in his career.
Fletcher’s problems since leaving the Riverside Stadium will only serve to remind Boro of their major transfer error, and after being released by Watford this summer, the striker will be hoping that another club will take a chance on him.
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