How about Paul Merson? Wasn't a Wenger signing though, and had complicating issues so maybe I'm cheating...but I think he played better at Villa than under Wenger (though Villa wasn't the first Club he moved to). People often used to say the same about Clough and Forest (do any of you United fans remember Peter Davenport? Or Neil Webb?) although often people said that when Clough spent big money the player struggled to play as impressively as at his previous Club. Teddy Sheringham goes against both those theories though I think, improving at Forest then again afterwards.
Gary Birtles! He was actually slightly before my time in terms of remembering him as a player, but he's always one of the legendary flop signings brought up by United fans. I don't remember too much of Davenport pre-United but certainly at Old Trafford. He was alright in his first season too, top-goalscorer by a decent margin before tailing off. Webb had that bad injury playing for England not long after signing and was never really the same player again. Hard to say what would've been. You got me searching for this (Webb related), what a memorable opening day to a season that was! The result, the weather, Michael Knighton doing keepy-ups on the pitch.
If you want to think you're more objective than me (after claiming a few days ago that Welbeck was worth 25mm, or my favorite Smith, Fletcher and Jones will play Makelele, Lamps and Essien off the pitch claim), go right ahead. I've made my point on RvP, I'm glad we didn't buy him and we're not winning the league this season anyway. I'm sitting on a beach in the Carribean, I don't give a ********. Well, except for getting another Corona.
Yeah I thought about mentioning Birtles too! I think I've read that he was the 'Roy of the Rovers' striker of the season/year in '79 or '80. To be fair to Webb he did get that nasty injury didn't he, which might have slowed him up a bit (and he wasn't quick before, but he did get box to box and score quite a few goals for Forest as well as setting Franz Carr free down the wing with his passes). There's actually a Davenport compilation on Youtube too, with a couple of Man Utd clips on it:
Looking to initiate the 2nd version of the PL/CL era draft but rather than restricting to players who played in the premier league, I am going to open it for all players who had their primes in this era (definitions later). Bumping this to see if the people who participated in the previous one are interested.
I'll participate; hopefully some of my time constraints have abated. Meanwhile, it's funny reading things we argued about 2 years ago. RVP certainly integrated much better than I thought (until this season!), though he's also had his injuries and he faded last year after all that unexpected health. Meanwhile, I think I did win the below point
I would agree Nasri. Not so sure abt Fabregas. He's not been used properly and the whole team has unferperformed but... i dont really wanna fight this point.
That should be doable. We start in 2 weeks but have an extended deadline of a week for the 1st pick. So far, we have @Stud83 @nicephoras @johno + @benni... @JamesA + @nimma @Father Ted @Umar @thebigman @J'can ? Need a few more participants to make it interesting.
Wasn't interested in arguing it. It's amusing and interesting to see a capsule of a debate from a few years ago so starkly.
See the first post of this thread mate, and go on from there. I set a criteria for every round, and people send me their picks. If there are collisions on a certain player, that certain player is banned and you have up to 3 picks to make a successful pick otherwise I would assign a sheep to your team for that round (a sheep would be a Ali Dia level player). Go over the first few pages of this thread or the more recent all-time draft here - https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/sheep-draft-v-main-thread.2000793/ - and give us a shout if you have any questions. @Teso Dos Bichos ; are you in?