Mistakes and missed opportunities

[brontebilly]

Summer of '96. We needed a striker to push on and a creative midfielder (finished 4th, won the league cup and semi's of the FA Cup)... We only bought Curcic, Ellis wouldn't saction any more buys. We stagnated and went backwards and that was it.

didnt joachim come in that summer?

only got 2 points (and one place less) in 96/97 than we did in 95/96.

think little's inability to maintain discipline behind the scenes with the various playboys at the club was the reason we stagnated. but that was moreso the year after following the addition of one Stanley Collymore.

[class_of_82]

The leaving of Ron Saunders which was down to the bendalls. Saunders wanted total control of the club like fergie got at manure. Every position was covered in triplicate from 1st team to youth so a natural progression was in place for us to dominate for years to come but it all got messed up within a few years a crying shame really.

In recent years for me not signing les Ferdinand, mon signing heskey and going from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 which I still can't work out to this day.or going back even more the Saunders team of gray-little-deehan should of been good enough to win the league before 80/81 but it just didn't happen.

Another thing is the players we have signed over the years that have looked good players for there clubs(which is why we sign them) then just don't do it for the villa curcic,Thompson from Bolton to name a couple or the players we let go that are deemed not good enough for us then push on to become better players for other teams like Cahill,routledge,bannan and the list could go on and on but maybe that's for another thread.

[SoccerHQ]

Hindsight is easy but I wouldn't have signed Downing in summer 2009 for 12m, I'd have signed Bent for 10m as he went to Sunderland for around that figure. Milner and Young would've just stayed on the flanks like they did the previous season. Gabby could've also played out wide again

Really we need a finisher in that team, gabby and Carew did well in that period but neither could get more than 15 league goals, we need someone to push onto 20 league goals. I'm convinced we would've made top 4 in 09-10.

Flip side though is Milner wouldn't have probably been moved to central midfield so our team performances might not have been so strong.....but we'd probably have kept him for a little longer as utility players don't tend to attract 20m + bids.

That's my last big what if moment as that's the last team we had that could compete at the top level of the prem.

[Dante Lavelli]

think little's inability to maintain discipline behind the scenes with the various playboys at the club was the reason we stagnated. but that was moreso the year after following the addition of one Stanley Collymore.

Can you expand on this?  Not sure what you're referring to.

[LTA]

Moscow.

We came back to pre-season early, busted a gut to get through the qualifiers and group matches to reach the knock-out stage, made a big thing of promoting the whole European adventure, only for MON to then treat the competition with contempt, stick two fingers up at the fans, and bail out of the competition.

If only we could turn the clock back to John Carew's second goal against Stoke.

[Billy Walker]

1) Nothing to do with the football side of things, but knocking down the Trinity Road still makes me shake my head.

2) I think we got rid of  Graham Taylor (MkII) way too soon and I always feel sad that he departed the club, second time round, on a low note.  Afforded a little more time I think he could have built something special as he was assembling a side full of very good young players.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Drawing with Stoke after being 2-0 up. The beginning of the end of where we thought we could go with MON and Lerner.

[JUAN PABLO]

the ref adding that fergie time on against Sheff Wed was a massive mistake , not that it was anything to do with our making .  if we had won that league that year .

[avfc_1874]

Gregory & O'Neill not utilising the money they were given to build a competitive team for the long term.

[SoccerHQ]

Yeah go back to summer of 97 and signing Collymore was an error. At the time we were a regular in the top 5 and weren't far off a title challenging team but Collymore just upset the team dynamic (pretty sure we started playing Yorke in midfield?!) and the dressing room.

[supertom]

Yeah go back to summer of 97 and signing Collymore was an error. At the time we were a regular in the top 5 and weren't far off a title challenging team but Collymore just upset the team dynamic (pretty sure we started playing Yorke in midfield?!) and the dressing room.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I think we all felt, and hoped, that Collymore would be the missing piece of the jigsaw to push us up a level. Instead we seemed to implode a little, then lost Yorke the following summer. But with Collymore's attitude being very questionnable back then (which we now know can be partly attributed to his problems with depression), perhaps Little should have learned his lesson after Curcic. I wonder if we'd made a signing akin to Zola or Bergkamp, whether we'd have been better off. Maybe Nilis a few years before we eventually got him?

[nigel]

The departure of Ron Saunders

Doug breaking up the European Cup winning team too quickly/Not allowing Tony Barton to manage his way/Replacing Tony Barton with Graham Turner

Graham Taylor leaving for the England job

Going backwards in the last eighteen months under BFR

Brian Little losing his mojo

The decision making since MON left

I always thought that the Brian Little / John Gregory partnership could have been another Clough / Taylor in the making.

Little was an excellent manager while Gregory was an excellent coach.
When JG left to go it alone BL tried (or was he made) to do both jobs. It didn't work.
I felt that Doug started to interfere, where as if the pair had stayed together they would have stood up to him.

[nigel]

Yeah go back to summer of 97 and signing Collymore was an error. At the time we were a regular in the top 5 and weren't far off a title challenging team but Collymore just upset the team dynamic (pretty sure we started playing Yorke in midfield?!) and the dressing room.

I think I may have been the only one who didn't want Collymore.
Savo and Yorke were beginning to form a lethal partnership, the bringing in of Collymore upset the balance.

As tom says, though, Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[Hillbilly]

The 1914-18 war. We were never quite the same after that.

[Irish villain]

Yeah go back to summer of 97 and signing Collymore was an error. At the time we were a regular in the top 5 and weren't far off a title challenging team but Collymore just upset the team dynamic (pretty sure we started playing Yorke in midfield?!) and the dressing room.

I think I may have been the only one who didn't want Collymore.
Savo and Yorke were beginning to form a lethal partnership, the bringing in of Collymore upset the balance.

As tom says, though, Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I was only eleven, but at the time felt we needed a central midfielder to replace Townsend in 1997/98.