KentVillan Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Do we have enough for an all star XI? The obvious candidate is Robert Pires. I’m tempted to throw Peter Schmeichel in as well, perhaps a bit harsh, but he was a pretty mediocre player by the time he arrived here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 (edited) Collymore Ginola? Edited May 17, 2020 by nick76 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Gueye? I mean he wasn't awful for us but i wouldn't say good either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjw63 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Adrian Heath 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 4 minutes ago, rjw63 said: Adrian Heath That is a good shout and made me think of another from that era Frank McAvennie who was well past his best before date when Big Ron signed him. He was never a great though in fairness. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Didier Six? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattyvilla Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 gary penrice up front would be a must 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 If you include players who are past their best like Pires yes. You can go back in time to the great Peter Broadbent who I never really saw at villa but he was well past his best at us. We don't really sign big name players only when they are old. Stan Collymore stands out though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaVilla Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Ginola and pires were past their best when we signed them. Collymore was a basket case at liverpool, we took a punt on him and it didn't work out, which was completely not a surprise.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Only2McInallys Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 (edited) Peter Crouch never really settled fans got on his back Bought for 7 million,sold to Portsmouth for 2 million year later joins Liverppool for 12 million.Good business by Villa. Heskey Tony Cascarino ?Was he any good anywhere? Edited May 17, 2020 by Only2McInallys 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaVilla Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 rather than "great players who were crap for Villa", below who i reckon "didnt live up to expectation": Tommy Elphick - 3.5m, leader, professional, should have been an important part of our promotion team, mostly poor/average (read his story on Villa when he joined, for me shows how its probably as much the clubs fault players failed, as the players themselves) Scott Hogan - 10m, decent scoring record in Championship, bombed badly. Aaron Tshibola - 5m, highly rated, bombed. Ross McCormack - 13m, had a very good scoring record in the Championship, bombed with us. (terrible financially for us) Richie De Laet - 2m, granted not a brilliant player, but the expectation should have been much higher, loaned out, bombed. James Bree - 3m, signed as a high potential youngster, surprise surprise didnt develop. Pierluigi Gollini - 4.5m, highly rated, went on to be a great keeper in Italy. Henri Lansbury - 3m, had a very good time at Forest, bombed with us, very expensive failure based on salary etc. Micah Richards - Nuff said. Libor Kozak - 6m from lazio, never got going, injuries didnt help. Charles N.Zogbia - 10m, Nuff said. Stephen Ireland - 9m as part ex for Milner, nuff said. Eric Djemba Djemba - 2.2m from Manure, sigh...... Bosko Balaban - 7m in 2001..........nuff said. Sasa Curcic - 5.5m in 96, was meant to be the missing link to give us the title.....yeah.......nuff said. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LancsVillan Posted May 17, 2020 Moderator Share Posted May 17, 2020 1 hour ago, KentVillan said: Do we have enough for an all star XI? The obvious candidate is Robert Pires. I’m tempted to throw Peter Schmeichel in as well, perhaps a bit harsh, but he was a pretty mediocre player by the time he arrived here. Two completely different ways of looking at this for me. 1.Players we've signed due them being decent at previous clubs who simply didn't produce it. 2. Players we had - bought or through youth - who didn't perform here but did when they moved on. Players in group 1: Loads n loads but obvious ones Curcic, Alan Thompson, SVC, Ginola, Didier Six, Pires (too old) Sutton, Heskey Group 2: Gueye, Veretout (not done bad since he left), Savo was forced out but had decent career, Albrighton, Adama, Brian McLair For me VP can be a bit of an elephants graveyard for players and managers, once you've been here it isn't going to get any better, especially for those who weren't sold for 'silly' money. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 (edited) What about Joe Cole? We called him "Cole in the hole" when he arrived. But he didn't do much. Edited May 17, 2020 by villalad21 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 (edited) Lescott Cascarino? Sutton Edited May 17, 2020 by nick76 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Pretty much every player you can think of in recent times as been better elsewhere than they have been for us the list is endless, players seem to both improve when we sell them and get worse when we sign them, you could probably make a team of our former players that were written off as not being good enough whilst they were here, but have gone on to do well and as a group would be better than our current crop of players... Somthing we need to improve on if we're to make any progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Scott Sinclair if you look at his career on paper, man City (reserves) to be being dog shit for us to winning everything and player of the year I think at celtic I hated him at villa, stole a living 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 6 minutes ago, useless said: Pretty much every player you can think of in recent times as been better elsewhere than they have been for us the list is endless, players seem to both improve when we sell them and get worse when we sign them, you could probably make a team of our former players that were written off as not being good enough whilst they were here, but have gone on to do well and as a group would be better than our current crop of players... Somthing we need to improve on if we're to make any progress. I have to agree I can only think of Benteke that really nose dived after us but was superb for us but to be fair we all said that the style Liverpool played then wasn’t suited to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Downing was much better here than at Liverpool or West Ham. It's certainly a pretty short list in last 10 years though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Ginola, Cole, Pires, Berger, Stone (well maybe not great but was previously international level)- bascially any player we bought who was a name and over 30. Collymore was probably the biggest disappointment but he had a lot of issues going on there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted May 17, 2020 Author Share Posted May 17, 2020 Think a few of the players being named were never anywhere near being "great" - e.g. Lescott. But some genuinely great players have been mentioned as well. Left wing is the one that sticks out: Didier Six, Ginola, Thompson, Berger, Pires (three of them French as well!)... could arguably add Joe Cole to that list. My guess is that wingers peak quite young, and then as they lose pace, usually need to reinvent themselves as centre mids (Giggs, McManaman, Beckham) if they want a long career. We funded the retirements of a few players who were instead content with trading on past glories. Here's a go at an XI that in their prime would have been a very good team (defence could do with some work): GK: Schmeichel CB: Richards CB: Lescott CB: Beye RW: Pires CM: Cole CM: Ireland CM: Ginola LW: Pires CF: Collymore CF: Heath Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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