Average players you REALLY wanted us to sign....

[aRdja]

Inspired by an exchange in the members forum between The Woolster, 9 God and myself. I’ll start...

 

Franck Queudrue. A decent enough player. Good size, a good footballer, but he wasn’t any better than Riise.

Laurent Robert. A magnificent set-piece taker, and a natural wide player. Never really lived up to his initial promise I don’t think.

[3 Stacks]

Is that it? I assure you, your list should be way, way longer than that.

 

Ben Arfa for me, obviously. Ridiculously talented player but he's had a very average, if not poor career, considering what he could've been.

[manwiththestick]

I remember us being linked to Paul Kitson back when he was at Derby County and really wanted us to sign him as he look a decent striker at a young age.

[Chip Butty]

Still to this day, I wonder why, why, why oh why, did I think Lee Trundle could ever possibly do a job for us. 

 

 

Dickhead

[Harry Squatter]

Talisca. Thought he was ace when i went to watch Benfica play in 2014 but he ended up being linked with Wolves and can't get in the Besiktas team.

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

Jason McAteer

[SammyAftershave]

Phil Babb after building on his league form with a wonderful world cup

 

and we did sign him

 

and he seemed disinterested and was fuckin shit and the only memorable thing he did here, outside of the white suit, was to smack his balls into the post.

 

PS and that wee Norwegian fella who was tearing it up at Wimbledon and we signed him and he was that ordinary that I can't even remember his name.

[Guest]

I remember seeing a striker play really well for Derby County back in the 90s. Derby County were OK as a team but certainly nothing special and for a striker to play well for them was hardly a demonstration of anything other than being above average. But when the rumours started that Liverpool were after Dean Saunders it seemed to be a signing that made perfect sense and couldn't wait until the signing was confirmed. I think he was also the record signing at the time also.

 

For me personally though, he really did personify the average striker who performed exactly to the level he promised.

[Shitty Arse]

Harry Kewell. I was convinced he would be absolutely fucking boss. Stunk the place out obviously

[Dr Nowt]

Phil Babb after building on his league form with a wonderful world cup

 

and we did sign him

 

and he seemed disinterested and was fuckin shit and the only memorable thing he did here, outside of the white suit, was to smack his balls into the post.

 

PS and that wee Norwegian fella who was tearing it up at Wimbledon and we signed him and he was that ordinary that I can't even remember his name.

Leonhardsen.

[The Golden Eel]

I was a big fan of Charles N'Zogbia at one point, that didn't work out too well

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Alun Armstrong. Forward who played for Boro. Had a brief purple patch and I was convinced he was going to be boss.

 

Martin Reuser. Ipswich wide midfielder. Scored some belters which kind of gave an unwarranted high impression of him.

 

Philippe Albert. Not sure he was that bad. But, I thought he was a lot better than he actually was.

 

And, one we did sign...Markovic. I fell for the YouTube compilation fallacy. That makes a player look better than they actually are. I was convinced that Markovic had all the attributes to be boss and would step up a level with us. Alas....

[Bjornebye]

Pedersen from Blackburn

 

When I was a kid we happened to have a video of Newcastle winning div 1 before they got promoted and I really wanted us to sign Lee Clark.

[Hades]

Fellaini.

[mouse1989]

Micah Richards - I remember watching us play City in the youth cup final and thought he was going to be incredible

[Jairzinho]

Micah Richards - I remember watching us play City in the youth cup final and thought he was going to be incredible

I always thought the other young defender at City, Onouha, was going to be decent.

 

Er, no.

[Pidge]

I have exceptional judgement and have never been wrong about a player.

 

Quaresma.

[magicrat]

I really wanted Tello from Barca few years back. Thought he was fantastic prospect but moved on and did fuck all, Think he's at Betis these days

[manwiththestick]

Gareth Barry?

[magicrat]

Gareth Barry?

 

Good player but not better than Alonso

[cloggypop]

Bony

[sir roger]

At one point I regaled friends with the undiscovered talents of Ricardo Vaz Te. They, to their eternal credit , said he was shit & history tends to support them.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I hoped we'd go for Dieumerci Mbokani after seeing him give Carra the runaround for Standard Liege.

[joe_fishfish]

I wanted us to sign Axel Witsel off the back of his performance against us for Standard as well. Looked quality.

[Crouchie]

Seemed to be linked with him a lot in 90s and I really wanted us to get Peter Ndlovu.