Wesley Moraes

[gwi1890]

39 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Hasnt scored in 5 for levante not doing very well there either apparently.

Thankfully his contracts up in the summer. 22m down the drain when he is released on a free.

Has to go down as one of our biggest ever flops

Wesley 26 appearances 6 goals

Emile Heskey 92 appearances 9 goals 

Milan Baros 42 appertaining 9 goals 

Marlon Harewood 29 appearances 5 goals

Marcus Allback 35 appearances 5 goals

Wesley’s goal record in comparison to the few listed here isn’t bad,  it’s the fee we paid for him that makes it look worse.  

[tomav84]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Hasnt scored in 5 for levante not doing very well there either apparently.

Thankfully his contracts up in the summer. 22m down the drain when he is released on a free.

Has to go down as one of our biggest ever flops

i'll always remember checking out his youtube compilation when we signed him and thinking - "he doesn't look very good". and that was supposed to be his highlights!

i'll go as far as to say our biggest flop. injury or not, i saw very little to suggest he would've been any good for us

[Demitri_C]

36 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

Wesley 26 appearances 6 goals

Emile Heskey 92 appearances 9 goals 

Milan Baros 42 appertaining 9 goals 

Marlon Harewood 29 appearances 5 goals

Marcus Allback 35 appearances 5 goals

Wesley’s goal record in comparison to the few listed here isn’t bad,  it’s the fee we paid for him that makes it look worse.  

Compare the fee 22m.

Baros was like 6m, Harewood was less and allback was even less than him.

Wesley was a collosal flop but not all on him the injury ruined his career

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

i'll always remember checking out his youtube compilation when we signed him and thinking - "he doesn't look very good". and that was supposed to be his highlights!

i'll go as far as to say our biggest flop. injury or not, i saw very little to suggest he would've been any good for us

I never watched it. But one thing that concerned me very early on was for a big man how weak he was and rarely won any battles in the air.

[villa4europe]

dont compare the fees, its pointless in the context of football inflation

crazy but £22m for a PL striker is no longer a lot of money

[Zatman]

10 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Compare the fee 22m.

Baros was like 6m, Harewood was less and allback was even less than him.

Wesley was a collosal flop but not all on him the injury ruined his career

Baros 6 million fee was in a summer that the highest Premier League transfer was 24million

[Vive_La_Villa]

8 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

dont compare the fees, its pointless in the context of football inflation

crazy but £22m for a PL striker is no longer a lot of money

Exactly,  Baros was around 6-9m and I think that was the second highest fee we had ever paid for a player.  9m was a big deal back then!

Harsh to call him one of the biggest ever flops when he had such a bad injury.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Vive_La_Villa

[rodders0223]

Baros wasn't a big fee I'm sure we spent bigger on Dion half a decade earlier not to mention Angel and Collymore.

Baros was considered a big signing because he came from Liverpool and Doug hadn't spent a penny of note in years. He was a terrible striker.

 

Anyway onto Wesley, he's not going to score many goals at this club or even again at any proper level. If you watch him play at his peak he wasn't gifted or athletic and he's lost half of that. He can barely turn.

Incidentally undr the cosh had Malcolm Christie on his career was effectively ended at about 25 through a broken leg and bad advice on surgery. It made me think of Wes, you hope for him but the reality is his career is effectively over. I'm just glad he got that 5 year deal.

[CVByrne]

42 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

i'll always remember checking out his youtube compilation when we signed him and thinking - "he doesn't look very good". and that was supposed to be his highlights!

i'll go as far as to say our biggest flop. injury or not, i saw very little to suggest he would've been any good for us

Unfair given the injury. He's not been able to go back to the level he was before he joined us. Unlike Trez for example. The horrific injury has cost him the career he could have had even if that was just in Belgian league or Turkey.

He probably wasn't good enough for the Premier League if he stayed injury free. Thing is we'll never know where his career would have taken him after a failed season or two at Villa

[Mark Albrighton]

5 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

Baros wasn't a big fee I'm sure we spent bigger on Dion half a decade earlier not to mention Angel and Collymore.

Both Collymore (£7m) and Angel (£9.25m?) were more than Baros who was routed around £6.5m.

I believe Dublin’s cost was more like £5.75m. Merson was about £6.75m I think. 

At the very least with Baros we benefited by ultimately bringing in Carew for him.

Bosko Balaban is curiously missing from this discussion. Close to £6m, 2 years, 8 appearances, 0 goals, leaves on a free transfer. Excellent stuff.

Having said that, McCormack should be the gold standard by which all crap transfers are measured.

[The Fun Factory]

You can't judge Wes's time with us after that GBH assault on him by Mee. That has ruined his career. Even if he didn't  stay we would have probably got some resale out of him before that horror tackle.

In regards to Baros I was genuinely excited we had signed him, top goalscorer in Euro 2004. In 2005-06 season we had Baros, Angel, Kevin Philips, and Vassel up front and we still had a rubbish season.  Losing Solano back to Newcastle was a big blow as he was a major contributor of the goals. The best thing Baros did for us was being the swap deal with Carew when he left. This is all ancient history.

Edit- I think Vassel may have left by then. The late Ellis years have mostly been deleted from my memory banks.

Edited September 13, 2022 by The Fun Factory

[bobzy]

McCormack is quite obviously our biggest ever flop at a point where we couldn't really be forking out £13m on a player without them delivering.

Wesley showed glimpses of promise and would've had some resale value had it not been for his injury IMO.

[villa4europe]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

McCormack is quite obviously our biggest ever flop at a point where we couldn't really be forking out £13m on a player without them delivering.

Wesley showed glimpses of promise and would've had some resale value had it not been for his injury IMO.

yeah id go with that, maybe hogan too

both were bought purely on championship stats rather than proper scouting or due diligence in to their character, a lot of our championship scouting was terrible, so much money spent on players who were never going to develop or grow and be good enough for when we got promoted

if he didnt get injured and he had developed a little and acclimatised to the PL at least wes would probably be a squad player for us now

[Follyfoot]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Compare the fee 22m.

Baros was like 6m, Harewood was less and allback was even less than him.

Wesley was a collosal flop but not all on him the injury ruined his career

6m million then would not be far off 20 million now 

[The_Steve]

It’s really unfair to compare transfer fees from an era of football that doesn’t exist anymore. I won’t consider him a flop because he had a horrid injury that would ruin a lot of playing careers. I just hope whatever the outcome he can keep playing at whatever level. He’s been nothing but professional throughout - especially compared to wastemen like Ross. 

[Spoony]

How Wes can even be in the conversation for biggest flop when McCormack exists is beyond me. It will never be topped. 

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, villa4europe said:

dont compare the fees, its pointless in the context of football inflation

crazy but £22m for a PL striker is no longer a lot of money

Wasn't the rumour at the time we actually paid 3-4m more than we should've done as 20m + fees are more likely to obtain work permits.

20m + was certainly very dear for someone who'd just played in Poland and Belgium for european leagues. Watford signed Emmanuel Dennis for 15m two years later from Brugge for example.

Forest signed that guy from Koln for 17.5m aswell this summer so that's decent comparison for newly promoted team.

[VillaChris]

Kodjia had no re-sell value in the end.

This was despite him hitting double figures comfortably in 16/17 and maybe he got there in 18/19 although had to play back up to Tammy.

Then got promoted and warmed the bench in premier league but in the end we sold him to a middle east club for a million or two.

Another who got a couple of bad injuries just when he was looking very effective.

Scored 46 in 91 games for us according to wiki so comfortable 1 in 2 ratio. We certainly don't sign many forwards who score at that rate.

Edited September 13, 2022 by VillaChris

[villa4europe]

4 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Wasn't the rumour at the time we actually paid 3-4m more than we should've done as 20m + fees are more likely to obtain work permits.

20m + was certainly very dear for someone who'd just played in Poland and Belgium for european leagues. Watford signed Emmanuel Dennis for 15m two years later from Brugge for example.

Forest signed that guy from Koln for 17.5m aswell this summer so that's decent comparison for newly promoted team.

maybe, i dont think its necessarily 20m+ but there are some work permit points based on the value and i think the wage and then records and averages etc

thats why we could get one for luiz when city couldnt, he was classed as higher profile for us

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

Kodjia had no re-sell value in the end.

This was despite him hitting double figures comfortably in 16/17 and maybe he got there in 18/19 although had to play back up to Tammy.

Then got promoted and warmed the bench in premier league but in the end we sold him to a middle east club for a million or two.

Another who got a couple of bad injuries just when he was looking very effective.

Scored 46 in 91 games for us according to wiki so comfortable 1 in 2 ratio. We certainly don't sign many forwards who score at that rate.

Kodjia was great for us. That season when he was deputizing for Tammy he was awesome as well, great attitude. Scored some important goals, like our first against SHA at home (believe it or not SHA were above us in a promotion spot at the time).

16/17 Kodjia was special though. Brought the spark back to Villa. The sole shining light in the shitshow that was Aston Villa. I remember watching his clips on Youtube when he was linked to us. Saw that goal at 1:20 and thought "we have to sign this madman".