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Which Player Did We Make The Biggest Mistake Of Letting Go?

helenlovescity78

By helenlovescity78
in Football Chat

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Bristol Boy

Bristol Boy

Posted
Posted
Paul Heffernan was a dissapointment, I agree. I think Tins thought we would keep hold of Leroy though but Cotts for £2m was astonishing. Finally we sold someone at the right time. £400k for Fortune and £800k for Brown are two deals I wish had gone through.

Where is Aaron "I've made it" Brown these days? I bet he regretted leaving........

That was the deal that never was-Brown to WBA and it was £600k-This is how it was made up, "made up", being the operative words.

£100k down + £100k over a year-That was the only definite payment.

The rest was subject to things like goals & England Caps and I'll let you make your mind up about how likely they were.The lad could have been top drawer but he was poorly advised, poorly managed and never really got over that injury.

Agree about Fortune who makes Brooker look like an ever present and he turned down the move, not us.

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Bristol Boy

Bristol Boy

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There has indeed been some appalling business done with SteveL on the board, culminating in the c**k-up over Rosenior but also including what with hindsight was vast over-paying for many players. But if you look at what has happened over time - crucially in the selling rather than the buying (because in my view that is where managers influence chairmen less) - I think you can see that we are doing increasingly better business in the market. I agree that much of the good buys come from good picks, but holding out for the right price and getting the sort of fees negotiated for Cotterill and Lita among others I think shows that the board has got progressively more savvy and learned from their mistakes. And while the board deserve criticism for past mistakes, I think they also deserve credit for when things go right.

Of course, there will always be the odd one that slips through the net (Chelsea must regret letting Lita walk away rather than taking him on and loaning him out to develop him, for example). But in general I think we've lost the aura of being soft touches. Being in this division will also help us hold on to players we want to hold on to, strengthening SteveL's hand. When buying, it helps having a manager who can spot a bargain. But when selling, it's surely far more down to the board. What manager is actually going to say, 'Yeah, sell Cotterill. We don't need him.' It's up to the board to judge how valuable a player is to us compared to the value of selling him. And in general in the past few years, there has rarely been a rush of fans ready to condemn the sales because they've all made pretty good sense (Lita, Cotts, Golbourne, for example - even Stewart once GJ had frozen him out).

The one major difference these days has been that virtually every deal has a sell on clause, albeit Reading & Fulham found a sneaky way around that on Rosenior.At least if LL moves on for £5m, we'll get 25% of the profit, unlike a certain Andy Cole where we even had to give a large chunk of the £1.75m Newcastle paid to Arsenal.The money from a sell on clause may well have changed the entire history of our club.

The Cotterill deal is looking better by the day and now that we're in the CCC, SL had said that we will find it easier to hang on to our better players-That being said, I'm a realist and every player at every club has his price,

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ciderup

ciderup

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Posted
The one major difference these days has been that virtually every deal has a sell on clause, albeit Reading & Fulham found a sneaky way around that on Rosenior.At least if LL moves on for £5m, we'll get 25% of the profit, unlike a certain Andy Cole where we even had to give a large chunk of the £1.75m Newcastle paid to Arsenal.The money from a sell on clause may well have changed the entire history of our club.

what happened about that? I always thought the swap deal would have an 'independent' valuation and the sell on clause calculated from that valuation. Surely City can't let this lie (if we recieved nothing) as 25% would IMHO add to around £1/2M.

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GrahamC

GrahamC

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What about the old Brown to Newcastle link. I'm sure they offered us silly money after he tormented them when he was a very young 'un.

That was Dwayne Plummer after he played against Newcastle, though I'm sure the rumour was Arsenal offered the cash.

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Chappers

Chappers

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Fleck was never going to stay and Rotherham wanted silly money for Robins - I don't actually think he played that much after leaving us due to injury. Going back-

John Bain - Decent player, but Dicks kept 'his' side together instead.

Colin Lee - Might have been a good replacement for Cheesley (I mean as a big striker, nowhere near the same class), but Dicks was not keen on younger players stepping up.

Gary Williams - Talented but erratic. Plyed one game in midfield at Blackpool and looked class, but Cooper played him in defence. Played for Oldham in a higher Division for about 9 years after leaving us... In midfield.

Jon Economou - Great name!

Forbes Phillipson-Masters - Even better name

Gary Penrice - Released as a cost-cutting measure and the irritating little **** was a permanent pain when playing against us for the Sags.

Mike Hooper - A badly struck loan deal enabled Wrexham to sign him on the cheap.

Bad buys not mentioned-

Ray Atteveld

Tony Fitzpatrick - I saw most of his games, and still missed his only goal for City!

Jan Moller was great, but if you can't score goals and have an adequate keeper, why buy another keeper?

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Bangkok Red

Bangkok Red

Posted
Posted
Alex Ferguson's first ever signing for Man Utd,

many stories about Ralph, some true, some urban myths,

all are very funny!

One of the urban myths was that he was Alex Ferguson's first ever signing for Man Utd. :rolleyes:

Fergie had signed the likes of Brian McClair and Steve Bruce long before Ralph Milne came on the scene.

Ralph Milne is considered by many to be Fergie's worst ever signing though.

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united

united

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Posted
One of the urban myths was that he was Alex Ferguson's first ever signing for Man Utd. :rolleyes:

Fergie had signed the likes of Brian McClair and Steve Bruce long before Ralph Milne came on the scene.

Ralph Milne is considered by many to be Fergie's worst ever signing though.

Here's some funny clips of Ralphie being rubbish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA0_yB0xl1Y

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lotusman

lotusman

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Posted
Under SL's time on the board there have been some very dodgy signings indeed:

- allowing Pulis to spend £1.5m on retirement home headed crocks like Jones, Holland, Beadle, Mercer and Burns.

- allowing Wilson to spend £1.2m on Peacock, Miller and Wilkshire

- allowing Tinnion to sign Marcus Stewart on high wages but let the cheaper and more valuable Heffernan go for little knowing full well that he would accept a bid for Lita that was more likely to come than not

Some good deals too in fairness:

- Cotterill for £2m

- Akinbiyi sold on for what ended up being over £4m

- Noble, Fontaine, McCombe, Orr, Keogh, Johnson, McAllister and Basso all for free or nominal fees

- Brooker for £150k

- McIndoe, Sproule and Wilson are looking like they could end up being very good value to me too.

It's fair to say that things have improved markedly in the last two years but is that down to the chairman or the manager? I think the latter myself.

I agree that we're not a soft touch now, though I do wonder about what we paid for Trundle, but I think that's just down to our status. Our better players can be priced out of range of any club who doesn't have Premiership money but when they're proven in this division and interest those clubs I don't think we'll be much different to before. The numbers will be bigger but bigger clubs with more money will feed on us just like we've fed off Cheltenham, Lincoln, Port Vale etc.

Tinnion did not purchase Stewart. The decision to sign him and indeed all negotiations were conducted by S.L. Certainly it is true that B.T. welcomed the signing, he was however allowed to instigate & oversee the Michael Bridges acquisition.

Remind me at what level has Hefferman performed at since his departure from us?

Likewise Tinnion had no control over Lita's departure. Again S.L. was the central figure,Tinnion's view was that both the club & Lita would benefit from another season at A.G.Not only did he think Lita still had much to learn but he had absolute faith in Lita's ability to be a top class striker and realised a million was far from "a bite your hand-off offer".Whether S.L. could have quelled the interest even for a short term is difficult to know for with the involvement of an agent in the mix and with a 3 fold salary increase on the table it is pretty easy to unsettle a young ambitious man.Cotterills departure just a year later for twice as much ,yet having achieved far less than Lita illustrates Reading did a great piece of business at our expense and sadly at Tinnions too.

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NiceRed

NiceRed

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I may well be wrong about this, but didn't we have Emerson Thome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_Thome) on trial when he was playing in Portugal? It would have been around 1998. He went on to play for Sheff Wednesday, Chelsea, Sunderland + others afterwards.

Ago on a free was the deal I was most upset about, as he was playing some amazing stuff in his last season for us, but I guess we could do nothing about it.

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citynut54

citynut54

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I may well be wrong about this, but didn't we have Emerson Thome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_Thome) on trial when he was playing in Portugal? It would have been around 1998. He went on to play for Sheff Wednesday, Chelsea, Sunderland + others afterwards.

Ago on a free was the deal I was most upset about, as he was playing some amazing stuff in his last season for us, but I guess we could do nothing about it.

[/quo

Yeah.. think i was Osman didn't rate him !!......nuff said !!

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Always Believesham

Always Believesham

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Bas Savage...great suggestion

On to the rovers point ...the sags claim to have had bellamy as a kid till he was 9. SO....West Hams attacking line-up that would have cost however many milllions left rovers for a combined total of 100K ....

A suitable expression for a time like this is :laugh:.

Andy Cole moved on a wee bit but i don't think we've done too badly in recent times.

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Bangkok Red

Bangkok Red

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Likewise Tinnion had no control over Lita's departure. Again S.L. was the central figure,Tinnion's view was that both the club & Lita would benefit from another season at A.G.Not only did he think Lita still had much to learn but he had absolute faith in Lita's ability to be a top class striker and realised a million was far from "a bite your hand-off offer".Whether S.L. could have quelled the interest even for a short term is difficult to know for with the involvement of an agent in the mix and with a 3 fold salary increase on the table it is pretty easy to unsettle a young ambitious man.Cotterills departure just a year later for twice as much ,yet having achieved far less than Lita illustrates Reading did a great piece of business at our expense and sadly at Tinnions too.

Wasn't Lita starting the last year of his contract and showing no inclination to sign a new one? Under the circumstances we had to take what was on offer rather than risk him walking out for nothing.

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The Pinamonte Experience

The Pinamonte Experience

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I think there are more examples of players making the mistake of leaving us and are now playing at a lower level, off the top of my head I can think of

Ph*illips and Coles - Rovers

Brown and Brown - Gilligham and Salisbruy (?)

Anyinsah - was on loan at Bury from Preston last I heard, that was a while ago...

Golbourne - was on loan at Wycombe?

Coterill - Not getting a look in at Wigan, nor in the Wales side

Although how many of them dyou think would get in our side now?

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