Fjortoft was absolute pants until he scored a goal in the last quater of the season. Wouldn't rate him as high as Mayes, Rowlands, Bamber, Quinn or Shearer !
NMH
No he wasn't. I was a season ticket holder in the premiership and also went to pretty much all of the away games, Fjortoft always looked like he just needed a goal to get going, I rated him from the start and was really worried when it looked like he might return to Norway. He was already my favourite player even before he scored his first goal. Luckily once he got his goal he never looked back and we kept him.
12 goals in 16 premiership games in a team that was bottom of the league for the whole time is the sign of an outstanding player and unlike Andy Johnson very few of them were penalties. He was a much better player than Johnson is and the fact he scored more goals from open play than Johnson demonstrates this.
Then 26 goals in his second season even though he left a couple of months before the end of the season showed again what he was capable of but he was far more than just a goalscorer. He very nearly single handedly took us to the league cup final as well.
I would rate him far far higher than Shearer who although a very good player was not in Fjortoft's class but not many players are.
The day Fjortoft left was my most depressing day as a town fan rivalled only by the day we went into administration for the first time and the day Hoddle left.
He had 71 caps for Norway scoring 20 goals against teams such as Brazil and he also scored the winner in the game that got Norway to the 1994 finals in the first place.
He also scored 5 in his ten games in the European cup - the guy was pure class and how anyone can claim he wasn't a legend for us I don't know.