Players who let you down

[Zippity]

On the back of Jacapus' thread about players we had high hopes for and who lived up to their billing, name a player who you were excited we had signed who turned out to be a massive let-down.

Let's be honest, this is much easier as the list is fucking huge

I remember the fuss when we signed Stephane G'u'i'v'a'r'c'h (who knows where the apostrophe goes, man ) and the buzz...we'd signed a French striker (exciting for the time) and he was going to play in the World cup....ah, man, this was going to be mint!!

Think he was a sub and came on and everyone was nudging each other and going 'here's our new striker, he's going to bury it in the top cor....oh, that wasn't very good....he must be just getting into the game...aye, that's it....he's got the ball, watch him g....oh.....well, he's not up to speed yet.

Wait 'til he plays for us, though, he'll tear the league up....when he gets used to the pace, obviously.....ah, he's still settling in, he's actually really good at....umm....no, see the way he trapped that ball, once....erm.

He was shit.

Shit for France, shit for us.

Bah.

C'mon....let it out....who did you expect SO much more from?

[HughieG]

Great idea for a thread! I suspect this will be a long one.

There are so many that let us down (or maybe we let them down), also ones that did really well for us initially, but ultimately didn't turn out to be quite the player we thought they were, or could evolve into - Ben Arfa comes to mind.

What do I mean that maybe we let them down? Well, one of my biggest disappointments in recent years was that we didn't get to see more of Thauvin.

Talking of World Cup winners, he was in the French side in '18 and looked a good player when he came on. He's been linked with massive clubs since joining Marseille, and yes, that can happen to a lot of players that then, once they make the move, don't quite got the level for a bigger league with a higher level of quality players.

But I felt we threw away a diamond in the rough too quickly and that he could have become a quality player for us. When we signed him, I remember a lot of people being very excited about him. He didn't get to show his talents IMO.

[BenArfa10]

Michael Owen - Just didn't try for fear of injury

Ben Arfa - Discipline/Work Ethic. People laugh at the Messi comparisons but they are valid based on the dribbling. Barcelona were days away from signing him, so that tells you all you need to know.

Thauvin - I don't know what happened there

Damien Duff - decided NUFC was a holiday and enjoyed wages

Sissoko - cnut grade, a prize cnut

N'Zogbia - another who didn't have the work ethic to match the talent he had

[jacapus]

We have signed many a player at the twilight of their careers who because of their past reputation/ability caused a wave of expectation when they signed for our 'backwater' team.
Mick Channon & Stuart Pearce come to mind although to be fair the latter put in some decent shifts.

[sherwoodmag]

Albert Scanlon one of the Busby Babes that survived Munich,We signed him about 1960/61 for £18,000 which was not a small fee.Even though we had been relegated to the old 2nd Division he still rarely shone ending up at Lincoln and Mansfield.

His wife and kids stayed in Mansfield after he returned to Manchester and I worked with Mick one of his sons in the 1980s he was his fathers double with light blond hair.

[Jammy89]

Thauvin I think in recent times has to be the worst.

Also Joelinton. . . harsh maybe as he still plays for us and there wasn't load of hype when he signed but still, he was record signing. Should have done more than he has.

[Zippity]

I remember the Summer of 1998 and I was looking in the window of the old club shop when it was in those single story units round the back of Eldon Square and they were selling scarves with the names of our 4 exciting, new signings around the outside-Andy Thorn, John Hendrie, John Robertson and Dave Beasant.

I was so excited....

And they were, to varying degrees, all so shit.

[toonlegend]

gosh no one has mentioned the biggest **** of all - Michael owen

disappointment doesn't come anywhere near describing his lack of contribution

and I agree with someone further up - Damien Duff was a big disappointment

[ex_pat_magpie]

The big fat elephant called Sol Campbell for me as well as all of those named above.

As an aside it would be frightening to calculate the total amount of wages all of those mentioned in total had thieved from this club.

Totally it may be more the Ashley has sucked out by various devious means.

[Zippity]

(to be fair to Benny, he mentioned Owen)

Aye, with Owen being the worst offender by far on that score, Pat. To think that little shit was happy to take his hundreds of thousands a month whilst claiming he was injured.

Lying, thieving, cowardly little basttard.

I'd rather go for a drink with Kevin Philips.