Players that have come good after a bad start?

[Elite]

This ones inspired by Naby Keita whom I hope becomes one of these players.

 

They need at least one full shit season to count.

 

Off the top of my head there aren't many. Please don't include young players, I'm talking about established stars.

[KMD7]

Pires

[Kevin D]

Pepe Reina was written off, after his terrible Derby performance, as a Josemi type flap that the hand rubbing pervert had brought over instead of letting a good young English keeper like Kirkland develop, before he won 3 golden gloves in a row and called out Hicks & Gillet as the scumbags they were.

[moof]

Ian Rush

[Kevin D]

Gini wijnaldum's first season was filled with him constantly disappearing away from home with amazing regularity.

 

He has since grown into a real mainstay in the team.

[Kevin D]

 

[aRdja]

Jordan Henderson 

[Jennings]

Tony Moanero.

[moof]

Btw, there’s no way you can say Keita was “shit” last season. He’s had a bad start relative to expectation, but some of you are way overdoing it. 

[manwiththestick]

Bergkamp

Crouch

De Gea

[Guest Alex_K]

39 minutes ago, Kevin D said:

Gini wijnaldum's first season was filled with him constantly disappearing away from home with amazing regularity.

 

He has since grown into a real mainstay in the team.

Wrong. He wasn't scoring away from home, but he certainly wasn't bad. The defence was the issue away from home (see: Mignolet, Clyne, Lovren, Klavan all up there in the appearance stakes -- Milner as left back). Looking back, the 16/17 squad was just a car-wreck - Wijnaldum was one of our better players (also his highest scoring season to date although obviously his role in the team is different now). Also the Reina derby mistake was in possibly the 3rd game of his career? Hardly fits the remit of this question.

 

In truth these players don't really exist. Its very very rare for a bad player to suddenly become good overnight. In a wider context, possibly someone like Gareth Bale is a candidate? 25 appearances before he registered a win with Spurs?

[Trumo]

Rush and Bergkamp are two that stand out. Bale and Kane both took a while to get going at Spurs.

[Bjornebye]

4 minutes ago, Trumo said:

Rush and Bergkamp are two that stand out. Bale and Kane both took a while to get going at Spurs.

Kane? Seem to remember him banging them in against shite sides in the Europa league when he got his first break into the side. I might be wrong but from memory he seemed to be fast-tracked as their number 9 and has been banging them in since.

 

When I say banging them in I mean deflected tap-ins off the keeper.  

[Funkasy]

Wijnaldum and firmino were pretty useless their first season or two with us, both play a huge part in our last two VERY good seasons. 

[SlugTrail]

3 minutes ago, Funkasy said:

Wijnaldum and firmino were pretty useless their first season or two with us, both play a huge part in our last two VERY good seasons. 

Didnt Firmino come good very early into Klopps reign. It was when we played man city he really shone then was a little inconsistent for the remainder of the season but wasn't shit by any means.

[an tha]

3 hours ago, moof said:

Ian Rush

Did Rush have a bad start.

 

He was an 18 year old kid when we bought him.

 

Played a handful of games in first season in first team while he learned his trade and played in the reserves.

 

Next season he banged in 30 goals for us and was still only 20 years old at the end of it.

[John102]

I seem to remember Didi being a slow starter.

[Bjornebye]

Biscan was shite but then had a bit of a decent enough spell before he left. His highlight will always be swinging his prick and balls all over the shop against the shite though. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trumo]

12 minutes ago, John102 said:

I seem to remember Didi being a slow starter.

 

He didn't get any quicker either!

[Grinch]

Lovren apparently,  went from Phil Babb's Croatian twin to a player who isn't a complete liability every week.  

 

Good would be stretching it though. 

[Dr Nowt]

59 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Biscan was shite but then had a bit of a decent enough spell before he left. His highlight will always be swinging his prick and balls all over the shop against the shite though. 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming in for Xabi on the road to Istanbul always endeared him to me. Remember a game against Deportivo La Coruna in that campaign where he was brilliant, mazy runs and all sorts. Plus he scored a late headed winner against Allardicio’s Bolton when we were fighting for top four and they were maybe 5th, which got him some slack. Was mainly due to his tackle in that picture to be fair though.

[3 Stacks]

4 hours ago, moof said:

Btw, there’s no way you can say Keita was “shit” last season. He’s had a bad start relative to expectation, but some of you are way overdoing it. 

"Shit" is an overused word to describe footballers anyway, but when you combine the fact he's only played a handful of actual good games with what he cost, "shit" is pretty close to what's going on. 

 

To answer the question of the thread, there are probably loads to mention that have bounced back and established themselves, but I would say in a team like ours who is fighting for the big trophies and that has the pressure to win every game, you just can't justify waiting on someone to turn it around. You can maybe afford to do that when the expectation is to finish top 4 or top 6, but not when you have to win the league. I've always thought we would be patient with Keita, but surely something's gotta give soon or it's not going to be worth the wait. 

[Bad Red Bull]

Fabinho..

 

Looked all over the place against Arsenal. Now he's one of our best players on the pitch.

[clockspeed]

Pires is the standard it takes a year to settle . Think Overmars was poor 1 at year also before pair of them tore league up 2nd season 

[kemskem]

Hamann. He'd been mediocre/average and I've always wondered if he'd seen Ian Rush's column in the Daily Post, where he said it was time to step it up before the Roma game because it seemed to be a turning point.