Bought for £3m, this elf-like lad made the pre-weight–training Hooolio look like Paul Butler. Much was expected and little seen. Those who frequent the Archibald Stadium might have spotted him, flitting semi-transparent in the floodlights, bringing off a few deft touches, but our coaching methods do not seem to have made anything of his talents. Now taken on loan to Leganes in Spain by their new manager Jose Peterman, former Argentine youth coach, we may see a greater player developed by someone who presumably knows potential.

Following the rule that the more an unknown player is hyped and the fewer pictures there are available, the more crap he is. Carsten’s fate was sealed before he even kicked a ball. Not that he did that very often. And remember that pop-eyed picture? The stuff of nightmares. Habitués of Archibald’s stadium might have a few good memories of how he lit up the Durham skies with his anonymity, but my only Fredgaard-related souvenir is of good old Sacko there, fists clenched and back arched in despair yelling out ‘COOM on, Ca-a-a-a-rsten!’. Well, now Carsten’s found his niche at Nordsjaelland, aka Farum, back in Denmark, currently 10th in the Danish top league.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Eric Roy’s arrival on Wearside was its unremarkable-ness. One minute this unknown was warming up and we were wondering who he was, next minute he was on, Eric Roy, and we didn’t even know he was French because of his cunningly English-looking name. Eric did all right for us. He was cool, dependable, quite hard but elegant with it, never flashy, never temperamental - and it was he who marshalled the mid-field in our heady 4-1 defeat of Chelsea in 1999. Then suddenly Eric was gone, as imperceptibly as he came. He’s now at Nice, a team-mate of Lilian Laslandes; in fact they're sitting next to each other on the team pic, probably reminiscing about the great craic with Heathie and Sacko.

One in an occasional series of blonde strikers (Marco, John Byrne, er… David Rush?), Lilian came with the highest credentials. At Bordeaux he had formed half of France’s most successful striking partnership with pre-Arsenal Sylvain Wiltord. He had a reputation for passionate play and a bit of hell raising on the side - what more did he need to attain cult status here on Wearside? Well, for one thing, the ball at his feet, a fact he was not so slow to point out to our oh so understanding manager. The look on his face as the long balls whizzed overhead turning from puzzlement to frustration to rage would have been quite amusing if not so tragic. So it was another story of ‘the lad didn’t want to play for us', and now he is leading goalscorer at Nice doing Nicely (sorry) in he top half of the French League, where he recently had the distinction of scoring all three goals in a 2-1 Nice victory. Now that’s passion for you.

Another tall blonde who stood wonderingly around the goal-mouth, this one looking more bemused than cross as the balls flew above his head. Bought for silly money in a panic at the very end of the summer 2002 transfer window, he unaccountably pronounced himself happy to stay here and cope with his multi-millionaire’s salary. But eventually he took the bait of a loan to Italy, where he is annoyingly doing very well for newly promoted Siena, who unfortunately play in black & white stripes to match their cathedral. Last year must all seem like a bad dream to him, too - that’s how he played.

Potentially one of Reid’s most interesting loan signings, sadly this former African Player of the Year was never more than half fit in the few weeks he was with us, though we saw flashes of the brilliance with which he led Cameroon to victory in the African Cup. In one of his crasser remarks, Reid quipped that ‘The lad’ (brought up from the age of 2 in northern France), 'Didn’t like the north east winds', a nasty subtext there, and didn’t sign him, which to be fair was probably the right decision. After an unhappy time in Libya where he did not get paid and was ostracised, reputedly for a disagreement with Ghadafi’s son. He moved on to Tokyo Verdy. This team is coached by Osvaldo Ardiles no less, and was founded in 1969 as Kawasaki Verdy. In 2001 they did a Wimbledon, moving to Tokyo and changing their name. What with that and a Sunderlandesque purging of their expensive stars in 1988 to ‘Give youth (and the accountants) a chance', they have now climbed to top of the League, and Patrick recently scored his 13th goal of the season for them.