Villa player assessments you got humiliatingly wrong ...

[Marka Ragnos]

When did you pretty much abjectly fail in your take on a Villa player? Perhaps you arrogantly heaped criticism upon a Villa player after some match or few matches who turned out, in the long run, to be superb. Or you ran from thread to thread, waving a flag of support for a player who eventually ended up a dire flop. Maybe you even held on to a view stubbornly, past all rationality but your own, and you got yourself some shiny new VT Warning Points for calling someone a **** --- and later realised, upon cooling off, that in fact, you were the ****. Perhaps it wasn't so extreme or melodramatic, but in any case, you still got it so, so, so wrong, and your Villa Talk cred was (for a time) torn to shreds.

[Keener window-cleaner]

6 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

When did you pretty much abjectly fail in your take on a Villa player? Perhaps you arrogantly heaped criticism upon a Villa player after some match or few matches who turned out, in the long run, to be superb. Or you ran from thread to thread, waving a flag of support for a player who eventually ended up a dire flop. Maybe you even held on to a view stubbornly, past all rationality but your own, and you got yourself some shiny new VT Warning Points for calling someone a **** --- and later realised, upon cooling off, that in fact, you were the ****. Perhaps it wasn't so extreme or melodramatic, but in any case, you still got it so, so, so wrong, and your Villa Talk cred was (for a time) torn to shreds.

I had Riccardo Scimeca as my favourite player, was sure he would become better than Southgate. Did he end up working at his families pizza place or something instead?

edit: now I read that he actually went on and played quite well for Forest afterwards, didn't remember that.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Keener window-cleaner

[KentVillan]

I thought McGinn was done at this level.

Someone dug out a post from about 10 yrs ago where I said Grealish was overrated.

Thought Benteke would go on to be a Champions League winner, world top 10 kind of player.

I think I thought that Drinkwater was an astute signing.

Got better at not completely writing off or getting too excited about players over the years. There’s a lot of luck in a football career. Injuries, lifestyle, right manager, etc.

[Zatman]

We overpaid for Martinez

Carlos Samchez was a coup

[DCJonah]

I genuinely thought Sherwood would turn us around. 

[gwi1890]

I almost feel ashamed to say this but I once said Craig Gardner was more than capable of replacing Gareth Barry.

[villaglint]

This has potential to be a great thread! 
 

I think we are good at editing out our own mistakes. I’m 100% I’ve made some clangers but will need some research to go back and find them.

[Sulberto21]

I thought sasa curcic is world class. 

[YLN]

I still think Benito Carbone was one of the all time great villa players

[bannedfromHandV]

Not a player but i though Paul Lambert was gonna be the man to sort us out, he most definitely was not.

[HanoiVillan]

I'm sure there's dozens and dozens, but the one that sticks out to me immediately is that I was very critical of Douglas Luiz during his first season here. 

[VillaChris]

Don't think I was posting on here (or even if this forum was going in August 2001) but if you'd asked me at the time I would've said Balaban would've been a great success....

At the time he was scoring quite a few for Croatia and plenty of decent european clubs like Fiorentina were apparently tracking him aswell.

This is what Gregory said on it (and there was investigation into the transfer a few years later);

Quote

Q] Tell us about Bosko Balaban?

A] That will be a millstone for me.

With Bosko, I never saw him play. A lot of it was going on recommendations from the scouting network.

We lost Luc Nillis with a horrific injury. I thought he was going to play a big part for us for many years. We then had to sign someone the following summer.

We kept getting these recommendations about Bosko. I never got the chance to see him but I was told he was a good finisher and might be worth a gamble.

The following summer, my last in 2001, the new season was upon us and we had to register all our players for the UEFA Cup.

We had qualified by winning the Intertoto Cup and we had a closing date. Before we knew it, that was upon us and we either had to sign Bosko or not. There was no point taking him later because he wouldn't have been able to play in Europe.

We had a decision to make. I sat down with the board and after meeting his representatives, collectively - although I had the final decision - we agreed to take him.

Obviously he needed a bit of work to get up to speed in the Premier League. Bosko wasn't doing brilliantly on the training field but he was getting used to the way we were doing things.

I just thought it was going to be a long process. Juan took some time but he got it right in the end. I thought Bosko would be the same.

As it turned out, I left in January and in the end Villa gave him away.

It was just going to be a question of time, in my opinion. I think eventually he would have made it - he'd have got into team and scored a few goals and been fine.

But I didn't have long enough to work with him. I have been haunted with him ever since. Whenever anyone wants to have a go at me, they just say: "Whatever happened to Bosko Balaban?"

Sounds like exactly how we signed Savo.

One of the few times I agreed with Ellis not wanting to splash money as a few months after signing Balaban Gregory also wanted Muzzy Izzet for a similar account and at the time Bosko wasn't even making the bench so no wonder the money wasn't forthcoming on a player about to hit 30 and Gregory left two months later.

[Marka Ragnos]

Mine is a bit of an unfinished story, I suppose, but I was very -- and very ignorantly -- harsh on Ollie in 2022. I honestly thought he was or should be finished here, but I think seeing how other players go through slumps -- Marcus Rashford comes to mind -- and emerge the other side eventually has opened my eyes and tempered my outlook. I admire Ollie more these days, not just as a player but as a person. He strikes me as one of the most emotionally mature and intelligent players for Villa, but if had been up to me (I don't even like to think of that ), Ollie would have been sold last January. I've also been guilty of a few "sell the whole lot" posts in that toxic Gerrard era. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Marka Ragnos

[DJBOB]

Thought Ashley Westwood was underrated. 
 
Turns out he was perfectly rated in every squad he was in. 

[Radness]

I thought we would be f*£n lethal on the counter with Gabby and Andi Weimann  

[VillaJ100]

I think a lot of people didn't think much of Petrov in his first season.

Thought Benteke would end up playing for Real Madrid.

Thought Lowton would come good.

Thought Joe Bennett would end up playing Sunday league by the time he was 25 but was still somehow a professional footballer as late as last year.

 

[Kiwivillan]

8 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

I think a lot of people didn't think much of Petrov in his first season.

I think he was overrated as did many. My first game at VP 1-0 to Owen goal vs Newcastle Petrov was diabolical and got hooked at HT and wasn't seen again for weeks. We won 4-1. He was propped up by players like Barry and Milner and when they left about half the forum thought he was bang average then he got sick so people left it alone

[FLVillan]

Long long time ago, the old man said "that Tommy Craig is exactly what we've needed for a long time in our midfield."  Perhaps the worst signing we ever made prior to Balaban and the Djemba twins.  Certainly the worst of the Sir Ron Saunders era.

 

[Adam2003]

55 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

I think he was overrated as did many. My first game at VP 1-0 to Owen goal vs Newcastle Petrov was diabolical and got hooked at HT and wasn't seen again for weeks. We won 4-1. He was propped up by players like Barry and Milner and when they left about half the forum thought he was bang average then he got sick so people left it alone

I don’t think many ‘overrated’ him in that I don’t know anyone who thought he was amazing - he was just a solid top-half PL midfielder and I recall him being widely seen as such after we realised his amazing debut was a one off. I do think your position is slightly off on the bang average/got sick bit at the end of his career - I remember that as everyone saying “why is he playing so badly right now?” and then the answer was “oh because he has leukaemia” - it was understanding the situation rather than leaving it alone. No doubt his form had dropped but I’d say very few leukaemia patients would smash it in a PL game!

Don’t think I’ve got too many calls wrong with players, but I did overrate Draper - couldn’t understand why he wasn’t in the England team - and I definitely expected more from Vassell than ended up happening (weird thing to say for someone who got 20+ England caps). Curtis Davies I also thought would go to the very top and then he fell off a cliff…
 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Adam2003

[Dillon66]

1 hour ago, FLVillan said:

Long long time ago, the old man said "that Tommy Craig is exactly what we've needed for a long time in our midfield."  Perhaps the worst signing we ever made prior to Balaban and the Djemba twins.  Certainly the worst of the Sir Ron Saunders era.

 

FLV, if you can remember Tommy Craig, than surely you can remember ;

'Ken McNaught, Ken McNaught...

The doziest b**stard we've bought...

For two hundred grand, we could build a new stand..

But all that we bought was McNaught...'

 

I think this is known as a collectively humiliating mis-assessment of a player who went on to be a club legend.

So be careful with your Robin Olsen songs lads...you never know