 |
Woefully inept, very awkward and above all majorly embarrassing, all this from a man who has a solitary appearance in the top flight that lasted less than the duration of a single half.
The cringe worthy nature of watching Dia on a football pitch can perhaps only be topped by the way Graeme Souness was conned into giving him a contract.
This story has now gone down in infamy, but let's run through it one more time anyhow.
Then Southampton manager Souness received a phone call from someone claiming to be African legend George Weah, who was recommending his cousin to the club.
That cousin was of course Ali Dia, with the Saints gaffer told he had previously played for Paris Saint Germain and Senegal and that a trial could be beneficial for both parties.
One little point that has to made here, Weah is from Liberia and not Senegal.
A risk was taken and a one month contract awarded, with it later being said the players were somewhat bemused by their new team mate on the first day of training.
Expecting him to never don the clubs jersey and take to the field.
Leeds United travelled to The Dell the next day though, and with a raft of injuries Dia was somewhat surprisingly placed on the bench.
When Matt Le Tissier was injured just over midway through the first half, guess who was called upon to replace a Southampton hero.
Dia came on but was so bad he was substituted off later in the game, and after reporting an injury to the club physio never showed up at again.
He did, however, pop up at non-league Gateshead, a level he was perhaps more used to after previously being at Blyth Spartans prior to his Premiership appearance - not Senegal like Souness was told.
If not the best this is one of the best tales in Premier League history, how a man with no experience got a top flight run out for being someones cousin.
You would expect that it still haunts Souness to this day.
After a transfer that raised many eyebrows to start off with, it was soon evident that the public were right all along.