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Players that never lived up to the promise


Keyblade

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Ever since MON left, we've just went from weakness to weakness (to subvert a common football phrase), and with that came quite a few players who either didn't live up to the hype upon transfer or showed promise early in their career that just petered out for whatever reasons. Here are some of mine.

Jean II Makoun - Had some outstanding passing performances early in his Villa career but just faded into obscurity after that red card away to Blackpool. I remember him having an incredible against Man Utd away where he had like a 90% passing accuracy on something like 90 passes. Why he never kicked on was a mystery.

Michael Bradley - Another player signed in the Houllier era and we had the makings of a solid midfield with him, Petrov and Makoun but it just never materialized. After leaving us he went on to have several solid seasons for Roma. Showed Reo-Coker how it was done.

Stephen Ireland - Although we got shafted by Man City in the Milner deal, Ireland was still a very talented footballer. He had a touch and awareness that was sorely lacking throughout our workmanlike team. During the Houllier season he barely got a look in, but was our best player in the McLeish season and even won an award for that, whatever that counted for. Completely frozen out by Lambert for reasons unknown, and has since done nothing of note.

Carles Gil - Awesome debut - check. Being perhaps the only creative player in a very poor side - check. All the ingredients were there for a new cult hero, but Tim Sherwood put an abrupt end to that. 

Adama Traore - The most electrifying player to arrive at Villa Park since Young. We paid a whole 20 Million Pounds (!) for him, before the huge TV deal. I can't express how excited I was for this signing. He must have made like maybe 5 appearances for our club, mostly from the bench. In the 3 years since he's progressed a bit, but still hasn't reached the heights we thought he could.

Jordan Amavi - One of the most promising young talents we've signed in recent years, it was such a shame it had to be during our worst season in recent history.

Jordan Veretout - Ditto. Went on to fulfill his promise and is apparently in line for a France call-up.

 

Who were your most disappointing players? You can talk about any era.

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9 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

We paid a whole 20 Million Pounds (!)

I though we paid around 7 million for him.

Going back abit for Sasa Circic and Stan Collymore were meant to be the 2 players that would help us challenge for the league. Instead they both weakened us.

Edited by Vive_La_Villa
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4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Adama Traore - The most electrifying player to arrive at Villa Park since Young. We paid a whole 20 Million Pounds (!) for him, before the huge TV deal. I can't express how excited I was for this signing. He must have made like maybe 5 appearances for our club, mostly from the bench. In the 3 years since he's progressed a bit, but still hasn't reached the heights we thought he could.

Traore cost between 6-8 mil depending on what source you believe.

I lose track of the big signings we have made that have tanked

Stan Collymore
Bosko Balaban
Milan Baros
Ginola
Hassan Kachloul
Nil Lamptey
Mustapha Hadji
Steve Stone
Ross McCormack
Micah Richards
Steve Sidwell
Sasa Curcic

the list goes on for pages

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8 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

Traore cost between 6-8 mil depending on what source you believe.

I lose track of the big signings we have made that have tanked

Stan Collymore
Bosko Balaban
Milan Baros
Ginola
Hassan Kachloul
Nil Lamptey
Mustapha Hadji
Steve Stone
Ross McCormack
Micah Richards
Steve Sidwell
Sasa Curcic

the list goes on for pages

Forgot to mention McCormack, that's another good one.

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Moore Brothers for me.

When you look back they were being hyped at insane levels on the forums and in the press (not helped by Rooney breaking through in that time). Stefan career amounted to nothing, Luke did have decent spell for us between 2005-07 but then did his shoulder at Chelsea and seemed to lose MON's trust after that for whatever reason and Gabby surpassed him in that time.

In recent years I did actually think Ireland and N'zogbia would be decent replacements for Milner and Young respectively so got those two hoplessly wrong.

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Stephen Ireland - Although we got shafted by Man City in the Milner deal, Ireland was still a very talented footballer. He had a touch and awareness that was sorely lacking throughout our workmanlike team. During the Houllier season he barely got a look in, but was our best player in the McLeish season and even won an award for that, whatever that counted for. Completely frozen out by Lambert for reasons unknown, and has since done nothing of note. 

Not true on the Lambert period.. He started Lambert's first game at West Ham and was then in and out of the side up to about November. He played really poorly in our infamous 12-0 xmas run and was then out of the squad for weeks before randomly starting the Bradford second leg which was his last game for us.

Think I read Bolton had signed him on short term deal but he's injured again so career that has amounted to nothing.

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