Mar 6, 2017

NOT The 60 Greatest Everton Players: Per Kroldrup
by Ed Bottomley

‘On his very first day of training, the gaffer took him to one side and started doing heading practice with him, like you would with a seven-year-old. It was a case of holding the ball, saying: “Are you ready? One, two, three – jump.”
‘Honestly, it was incredible. I don’t know what happened, but he had obviously realised that heading wasn’t Per’s strong point. £5m for a centre-half who can’t head the ball..!’ – Leon Osman on Per Kroldrup

‘I had big problems in adapting to the playing style in England and also the hard play.’– Per Kroldrup

Per Kroldrup. It’s fair to say we all expected a lot more, with even the coldest of Kopite hearts warmly greeting him to the Premier League fold, and predicting plenty of “sizzle”.

What we got was a £5 million Danish centre half from Udinese who couldn’t head the ball.

Another Dane on Moyes radar at that time was Daniel Agger:

“He had asked us whether he could meet me and my parents after the game and we said that of course he could. After the game I went back to my parents and waited for him and [and Agger’s agent] Per Steffensen to come but then Per phoned to say that David Moyes wasn’t going to come after all. He was being taken to the airport because he didn’t think that I was ready for the Premier League. A few months later I signed for Liverpool.”

So at pretty much the same time Moyes was signing Per Kroldrup, he was writing Daniel Agger off as being not good enough for the Prem.

— Ed (@dixiessixty) July 20, 2016

So how did Kroldrup – a man who on one hand had been rated by Moyes as a better prospect than Agger, but on the other, couldn’t really head the ball – do?

After waiting months to find out, Evertonians finally got their answer. On Boxing Day 2005 Moyes started Kroldrup away to Aston Villa. We lost 4-0. That was the only Premier League match he played for us. Just 31 days later Moyes sold him to Fiorentina.

@nsno_83 @badwool9 Remember watching that game. Boxing day? Someone wrote PER CAN’T ED on the bog wall in The Kendal.

— JP Schmidt (@badwool9) January 9, 2017