Ipswich Town’s £1.7m transfer agreement with Watford was a bitter disappointment

Hearing the name Tamas Priskin is probably still enough to send shivers down the spine of Ipswich Town fans, with the Hungarian striker epitomising a mire of mundanity at Portman Road around the start of the last decade. The forward joined the Suffolk from Watford in the summer of 2009, but failed to hit the heights for the Tractor Boys after moving from Hertfordshire for a reported fee of £1.7 million.

Five goals in 51 league appearances sums up the frontman’s time in East Anglia fairly well, with his mediocre showings contributing to back-to-back mid table finishes in the Championship, before being farmed out to a whole host of fellow EFL sides.

The not so magnificent Magyar is a player that will always live in the memories of Town fans, but not for any of the right reasons, with his measly contributions during his two-and-a-half year spell with the club coming to an end with player and club mutually agreeing to part ways.

Tamas Priskin EFL career: Watford, Ipswich Town, Preston North End

Priskin obviously did enough at Watford to suggest he could cut it in the second tier, although his debut season in the Premier League with the Hornets saw him net just three times in 21 matches after moving from Gyor in his homeland.

The Vicarage Road faithful must have thought they had a chief goal-getter on their hands after he opened his account in his fourth match for the club against Hull City in the League Cup, but it would take until April for him to notch his first league strike; the final goal in a 4-2 victory over Portsmouth.

The evidence that Priskin was failing to live up to the hype was starting to show in his second season in England, as Watford loaned the striker out to Preston North End midway through the season, before being thrown on in a futile attempt to salvage the situation in the Hornets’ playoff semi-final defeats to Hull City.

Things finally began to click for the Hungarian in his third season in England; netting 14 times in 41 matches to tempt then-Ipswich boss Roy Keane into a summer move for the striker, and unsurprisingly Watford were more than happy to be reimbursed with a seven-figure fee for relinquishing his services.

As soon as he made the move to Portman Road normal service was resumed, with Priskin’s name rarely appearing on the scoresheet, as the Tractor Boys continued to plug away in mid-table; neither being massively challenged by relegation or threatening to challenge for promotion.

This was peak-Ipswich malaise; in the midst of a nine-year spell of nothing-much seasons without as much as a playoff push, Priskin was a prime example of a club that had lost its way throughout the early part of the century – a far cry from the promotion contenders at Portman Road today.

Tamas Priskin goalscoring record Ipswich Town

It took until February for Town to see the errors of their ways, as they offloaded the forward onto QPR for the last few months of the season, so his shot-shy antics could be perused by another set of supporters for a couple of months.

The 2010/11 season may be the most memorable stint of Priskin’s time in Suffolk, with eight goals throughout the campaign but none more special than the winner in a 1-0 victory over Arsenal in the League Cup semi-final.

Although the Gunners would go on to win the return leg 3-0 to get themselves to Wembley, that victory was a high in another glamourless year in Suffolk for both player and club, with another season ending with Priskin moved out temporarily; this time to Swansea City.

As battles with the Welsh side over the Hungarian’s wages and who was paying them continued, he proved to be persona non grata at Portman Road for the following campaign. A loan move to Derby County was the latest damp squibb of a loan move to add to his collection, before featuring one last time for the Tractor Boys against Blackpool before seeing his contract ended in January 2012.

Spells in Russia, Austria, Israel, Slovakia and his native Hungary followed for the nomadic number nine, with his 15 league goals for Watford before joining Ipswich proving to be the ultimate red herring; with a touch over 50 league goals in his entire career.

Town were the fall guys in that particular deal, with the Hungarian hoax proving too good to be true. Priskin eventually retired last year after seeing his career out in his homeland, where he will be fondly remembered after netting 17 times in 63 international appearances.

He may not be so warmly welcomed in East Anglia though, with a stuttering few seasons in Suffolk something Tractor Boys fans will want to erase from the memory.

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