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F365's 'The Jury's Still Out' XI

We're not labelling them flops - because they've only just arrived - but there are an awful lot of multi-million pound players currently wandering around looking a bit lost and out of their depth. Most of them are living in north London...

GOALKEEPER: Heurelho Gomes (Spurs)
For £7.8m you expect a little better than the pathetic attempt to stop Ashley Young's daisy-cutter in Tottenham's 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa, but to be fair to the Brazilian he had already made six saves in that game and was probably tired of trying to keep Spurs in the game all on his lonesome.

The goalkeeper of the team bottom of the league will always come under scrutiny - especially with that price tag - but he will point to the statistic that only David James has made more saves in the Premier League so far this season. The jury is still out, but they should probably concentrate on the strong case against the defence.

RIGHT-BACK: Justin Hoyte (Middlesbrough)
Gareth Southgate is busy providing a home for players not good enough for Arsenal after Jeremie Aliadiere and now Justin Hoyte have taken up residence in the north-east. There's hope for Gunners that Emmanuel Eboue may be next but littke consolation for Boro fans who have been decidedly underwhelmed by Hoyte so far.

His only notable contribution has been an own goal against Stoke, while Southgate opted to play David Wheater out of position when Boro travelled to Sunderland rather than risk Hoyte against El-Hadji Diouf.

CENTRE-BACK: Vedran Corluka (Spurs)
Though of course the Croat could just as easily turn up at right-back, left-wing or making the tea under the Juande Ramos regime.

Google the words 'Corluka' and 'slowest' to get an idea of just how Spurs fans feel so far about their £7.8m signing. It's one thing getting the run-around by Ashley Young, but getting the run-around by Armand Traore is just plain embarrassing. We're starting to get an idea of why so few tears were shed by City fans at his departure.

CENTRE-BACK: Younes Kaboul (Portsmouth)
The clue to Harry Redknapp should have been that Spurs were willing to Sell Kaboul and replace him with Corluka.

To be fair, Redknapp tried to find a place for Kaboul by switching Pompey's fomation to 3-5-2 but he soon learned the error of his ways and twice hauled him off at half-time before leaving him on the bench for the Spurs game last weekend after a devastating 4-0 run-around at the hands of Chelsea in midweek. And hey presto...Portsmouth keep a clean sheet.

LEFT-BACK: Andrea Dossena (Liverpool)
It's telling that for the big games - the second leg of the Standard Liege clash and the ManYoo match - Rafa Benitez again turned back to Fabio Aurelio in the left-back berth. He's clearly not quite ready to trust the Italian and neither are the Liverpool fans after his performance against Middlesbrough when he somehow contrived to make Aliadiere look like a dangerous right-winger. And that's not a simple task.

RIGHT MIDFIELD: David Bentley (Spurs)
He has reportedly already confronted Ramos about the fact that he's already been used in four positions this season - the right, the left, behind the striker and on the bench. He's been underwhelming in all areas of the pitch so far, losing massive ground in the England reckoning in the process and amusing Arsenal fans no end that Spurs paid £15m for Bentley, with £7m of that price going to the Gunners as a sell-on fee. Blackburn Rovers fans may also be having a little chuckle that Bentley left them for Champions League football.

CENTRAL MIDFIELD: Marouane Fellaini (Everton)
If it wasn't for the small matter of Manchester City being taken over by one of the richest men in the world and breaking the British transfer record, an awful lot more attention would have been paid to Everton paying a massive £15m for a largely unknown and unproven player. And Fellaini has done nothing thus far to suggest he is worth more than £1.5m.

Moyes has previously done a tremendous job of paying relatively small prices for relatively good players, but at the moment most Toffees would take back Lee Carsley to replace Moyes' record signing.

CENTRAL MIDFIELD: Didier Digard (Middlesbrough)
The blame probably lies with Southgate for not adequately replacing George Boateng and Lee Cattermole with ready-made replacements, leaving Boro woefully light in central midfield. It's a big ask for a 22-year-old to make an impression on the Premier League but for £4m you might ask for more than a couple of mis-hit shots that magically became assists and you might ask him to be able to put in a full 90 minutes.

It will be interesting to see whether Southgate keeps faith with Digard and Mohamed Shawky in January or goes back again for James Harper or someone else with Premier League experience.

LEFT MIDFIELD: Luka Modric (Spurs)
When we watched the Croat in action in Euro 2008 it almost looked like Tottenham had got a £16.5m bargain, if ever there was such a thing. Fast-forward a few months and Modric is inexplicably playing as a defensive midfielder against Middlesbrough before being shunted around along with Bentley behind Darren Bent. And he looked lost throughout.

Injury follows and even on his return to fitness, he is bench-bound while Spurs search in vain for some kind of creativity. Ramos would be well-advised to start with Modric and build around him before the Spurs fans, board and Modric himself get frustrated.

STRIKER: Robbie Keane (Liverpool)
If at the age of 28 you have the chance to join your boyhood club for £20m, you can be forgiven for trying a little too hard, and that's clearly been Keane's problem at Liverpool. But the unfortunate thing is that as a striker you really don't get the luxury of time to settle in. Everyone wants to know where that first goal is coming from, and you can blather on all you like about 'just doing a job for the team' but a £20m striker is supposed to score goals.

Not helping Keane is the suspicion that Liverpool are more comfotrable without him, and it was telling that Keane was on the bench as Liverpool won in Marseille.

STRIKER: Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spurs)
He's been there two minutes and the assistant boss has already admitted that he cannot play with the only other senior striker at the club.

It's not his fault but for £14m you want at least a glimpse of the player who looked so effective in Euro 2008, and for £14m Spurs have got one goal against Newcastle in the League Cup and a handful of 'big boy lost' impressions. There's already talk of him deeply regretting his move to White Hart Lane - and not just because of the 'dark' people Sergei Rebrov warned him about.

Sarah Winterburn