Players that never lived up to the promise

[Stevo985]

14 minutes ago, hippo said:

Quite easily Scott Hogan - Big Fee - Doesn't score goals - can scarcely control the ball - Behind on Babalan IMO. 

Sure there have been loads of other dross signed for smaller fees - who have totally bombed - but on a ratio of fee's paid / impact Hogan is right up there. 

 

I think there's a handful of players we've signed since we got relegated that are in the conversation for worst signings we've made.

Tshibola, Hogan, McCormack the main culprits. Best part of £30m spent on them. In the championship!

Scott still has a chance to turn it round. I don't think he will but hope he proves me wrong. I think it's over for the other two though.

[Paddywhack]

18 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

It's funny. My view of JPA is massively skewed. His best seasons for us were during the only short spell in the last 25 years where I didn't really follow Villa.

I mean I did follow them. i still watched some games and followed results, but it wasn't like it is now or was before then. I was 17-18, massively into rugby an other activities that come with being that age and football didn't mean as much for a short while.

 

So when i think of Angel I never remember him as fondly as most Villa fans. And I always have to remind myself that that's more my fault than his!

Same thing happened to me, I didn't really follow Villa between 2003-2006. The DOL years coincidentally. I was playing in bands, being a right 'greebo' and for some reason I thought you couldn't like football if you were a little wannabe punk, it seemed to clash. Excuse the pun.

[Mark Albrighton]

Yeah, I had a few years where I didn’t follow Villa religiously. More “oh I see they won today...didn’t realise they were playing” kinda thing. Would still watch them occasionally, but other interests took hold. Came back more when MON left and I sensed the club “needed” me to care more.

As for players, difficult for me to add any further names. I’m surprised N’Zogbia hasn’t had more mentions. Maybe people didn’t particularly rate him before we signed him so he didn’t have high expectations to live up to, but that could be said for a few of these players. But what a terrible signing. One of the worst, probably only eclipsed by McCormack.

Considering he played a fairly prominent role in one of my happiest moments as a villa supporter, Graham Fenton didn’t go on to do much more. his Villa career peaked pretty damn quickly. But I’ll always remember him rubbing his hands before taking his penalty against Tranmere.

If it we were discussing managers, Lambert would be the one who didn’t live up to the hype. I really had high hopes for him.

[AvfcRigo82]

7 hours ago, Shropshire Lad said:

If it we were discussing managers, Lambert would be the one who didn’t live up to the hype. I really had high hopes for him.

I will agree with you here.

Given the shit we were in at the time and targeting Lambert at Norwich on the back of his success and what he built their etc. I honestly thought when he came here we were actually onto something and he was going to be very affective for us and envisioned him building a dynasty here.

Look how that all turned out and in the end, he went again.

[Hornso]

I think Di Matteo's name has to come up in regards to managers. Won the Champions League with Chelsea (regardless of how much of a hand you think he had in that) and then lasted about 13(?) games here.

I was excited by Houllier but unfortunately that fell apart due to health reasons.

[MrDuck]

4 hours ago, Hornso said:

I think Di Matteo's name has to come up in regards to managers. Won the Champions League with Chelsea (regardless of how much of a hand you think he had in that) and then lasted about 13(?) games here.

I was excited by Houllier but unfortunately that fell apart due to health reasons.

Houllier was just a dreadful choice. Had already had heart problems, been out of management for years and his best days were well behind him. Plus he still seemed far more interested in Liverpool than us.

[sheepyvillian]

I watched the league cup final against Norwich on You Tube the other day, to think I was there as a nine year old with my dad . It's crazy how little things stay with you, I remember as Norwich made their way down the tunnel with their losers medals, all the Villa fans, who were at that end, applauded them off with shouts of, " Norwich, Norwich " that was one of the abiding memories I kept with me from that wonderful day. Such different times, another thing that piqued my curiosity, whatever happened to Bobby McDonald, he was only 19 on the day of the final, but I don't remember him much after that season ?

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

On 16/12/2018 at 10:01, sne said:

I have no doubts what so ever he would have become a club legend had he not had his leg broken.

One of my all time favorite players and one of the saddest moments in following Villa for me.

Oh what could have been...

 

Brilliant call. I was so pleased when I heard about him signing. Then watched him on TV at the WC and on his debut and couldn’t believe what a player we had. Absolute tragedy what happened to him. 

 

I remember seeing both Balaban and Crouch  after they agreed to sign for us but before making their debut. Balaban played for Croatia against the Republic and unlike Nilis, he looked God awful. I saw Crouch playing for Pompey the evening that the mighty teletext said we were in talks with him. Honestly I had never seen a player like that before - he really was an oddity. 

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

I don’t know if anyone has said this before so apologies: I have to plump for Stefan and Luke Moore in this category. 

 

I know the youth and reserve leagues are a different game and all that, but massive things were expected of these two - esp Luke. I remember at the time hearing that he was going to be like Vassell but with an end product(!). 

 

Other than a nice showing in that 6-1 blowout against Boro, Luke’s failure to launch marked the end of my naive period concerning our academy! 

Edited December 22, 2018 by KevinRichardsonsMoustache

[sne]

Thanks.

While not being able to watch that many full games with him I still saw quite a lot.

Both Anderlecht and PSV are clubs with a history of Swedish players so the coverage here used to be pretty good back in the day.

Added to that Eurosport used to have a show called Eurogoals every Sunday or Monday where they showed the best goals from loads of leagues and extended highlights from the big teams in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany.

Every week Nilis was doing something amazing, scoring goals and assist, but since they showed extended highlights you could see he was also involved and instrumental in every attacking move that his team made.

Truly a class player.

[DJ_Villain]

Who was the Senegalese right back we signed from Newcastle who was their player of the year who sat on our bench and never played?

[Designer1]

2 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said:

Who was the Senegalese right back we signed from Newcastle who was their player of the year who sat on our bench and never played?

Habib Beye.

[DJ_Villain]

Just now, Designer1 said:

Habib Beye.

Thats the badger!

[sidcow]

Wesley Moraes....oh sorry, too soon!

[MaVilla]

A lot to choose from, but for $ to performance value, i would probably pick:

McCormack - 12.5m

Hogan - 10m

Traore - 9m

Gestede - 8m

Richards - Free (but 5 years and millions in contract for a waster)

Kozak - 6m

Ireland - (part of the Milner transfer? - so probably 5-10m wasted in px)

N'Zogbia - 9m

Harewood - 5m

Baros - 8m

Balaban - 7m

Curcic - 5.5m

 

so 90m in total in pure transfer fees, and that was just selecting the worst "cream of the crop"

[MaVilla]

On 04/12/2018 at 21:58, Keyblade said:

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.

club failed to accommodate a talented player and help them adapt to the Premiership, didnt give them time, or ensure the team played in a way condusive to get the best out of this type of player, if they had done so, we would have had a gem on our hands.

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. 

I would have actually liked to see more of Gil, if the team played in the right way and we purchased the right players for the rest of the team, he might have been decent, dont forget how utterly terrible the team was when he played for us.

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.

showed promise, got injured, but played in a terrible team that got relegated, and got sold off eventually to try and balance the books a bit.

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

club failed to accommodate a talented player and help them adapt to the Premiership, didnt give them time, or ensure the team played in a way condusive to get the best out of this type of player, if they had done so, we would have had a gem on our hands.

 

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

so easy to assess some of these..........denoted as above.

[bannedfromHandV]

Did we pay £20M for Traore?!?! Thought it was way less than that 

[Keyblade]

53 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Did we pay £20M for Traore?!?! Thought it was way less than that 

Yeah I was wrong on that one. It was more like 12m.

[hippo]

On 18/12/2018 at 17:13, AvfcRigo82 said:

I will agree with you here.

Given the shit we were in at the time and targeting Lambert at Norwich on the back of his success and what he built their etc. I honestly thought when he came here we were actually onto something and he was going to be very affective for us and envisioned him building a dynasty here.

Look how that all turned out and in the end, he went again.

I actually we ground Lambert down. He came full of fresh ideas and wanting exciting play.

He left with us playing 9 men behind the ball, passing it sideways at walking pace.

It was sort of untransformation if there is such a thing/word 

[deeps]

Berson wins this thread hands down. I remember all summer DOL after him