Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Ivo Stas on January 07, 2012, 03:30:49 AM
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Just curious, who was the worse signing..?
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Casc. Perhaps I'm romanticising the 1990 side but I was a genuinely excited 11 year old when he signed. I was promised that he'd see us through to the title and the fact that he cost over a million was amazing to me.
Also, could anyone really see Heskey impressing abroad like Cascarino did?
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Both were poor but Cascarino was the greater liability imo. Atleast Heskey has occasionally looked the part. I can't recall a game where Cascarino was anything other than a useless lump that got in the way. He wasn't even that great in the air.
We absolutley robbed Celtic blind when we sold him too.
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Neither is as bad as Tony Hateley another in our tradition of useless lumps miraculously dumped on some other gullible club.
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Simon stainrod was just as bad if not worse.
Cascarino was the wrong choice , we should have signed sheringham his millwall partner.
Heskey has quite simply been an embarrassment considering hes on £65000 a week.
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Neither is as bad as Tony Hateley another in our tradition of useless lumps miraculously dumped on some other gullible club.
Can't agree with you here Brian, great header of the ball and prolific goalscorer for us. Relegated the season after he left if my memory serves me correct.
We have had far worse players than Hateley and certainly the two discussed here.
Cascarino worse for me
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Cascarino was awful, he should have been so much better, I hate heskey more but tony was worse
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Cascarino suffered from a crisis of confidence. His autobiography makes excellent reading.
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However bad we perceive Heskey to be (I don't think he's actually that bad: wrong club, wrong time), the reality was Cascarino was much worse.
I did desperately want him to succeed, but I can remember in one of the many FA Cup ties with Wimbledon we had back around that time him missing the simplest of chances. That was when I finally lost it with him. Complete waste of space.
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I'm a Tony Hateley fan too, his league record for us of played 127 scored 68 stands comparison with any other centre forward of his era.
As for the other two.......can I vote for both?
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Bosco Balaban
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Cascarino by a country mile.
I seem to remember that to me, it looked like he never really wanted to be at the club
Its probably borne out by the fact that he now never has a good word to say about us.
That said, neither of them will ever be really considered 'Villa men'.
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Cascarino............cost us the championship that season.I'm convinced if we had bought Le Tiss, or Harford instead then we would have won the League that year.
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Cascarino signing upset the balance of the team, and we thus failed to win the league.
So in terms of impact on the club Cascarino was far worse.
I still don't rate Heskey, mind you I never did
If Heskey plays for England so can I......
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Cascarino suffered from a crisis of confidence. His autobiography makes excellent reading.
He also suffered from a crisis of ability.
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Cascarino by a long way,he made Garry Penrice look world class.
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Sorry Can't agree that Tony Hateley was anything other than an overpriced carthorse. Not for nothing did we dub him Douglas Bader. Great in the air, useless on the ground.
I recall as if it were yesterday the wave of incredulity that we managed to sell him for the same price as we paid for him.
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Sorry Can't agree that Tony Hateley was anything other than an overpriced carthorse. Not for nothing did we dub him Douglas Bader. Great in the air, useless on the ground.
I recall as if it were yesterday the wave of incredulity that we managed to sell him for the same price as we paid for him.
His goals per game ratio at villa was very good and would suggest you are well wide of the mark- heskey does well to hit the bottom tier of whatever stand is behind the goal hes aiming at.
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Tony Hateley... Not for nothing did we dub him Douglas Bader. Great in the air, useless on the ground.
So wrong, yet so funny.
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1. Emile Heskey
2. Bosko Balaban
3. John Fashanu
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Cascarino is the only one who actually stopped us from winning something imo.
His only saving grace was that we had a decent chant for him - despite the fact that he wasn't actually that good in the air. I can think of one bullet header on his debut away at Derby and that's it.
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Cascarino by a country mile. We would have won the league if we had bought no-one instead of him! The story goes that SGT asked Doug to buy Sheringham and he came back with Cascarino!
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I don't think Cascarino is even in the same class as Heskey. The stats speak for themseves 11 goals in 46 apps is pretty average but compared to 9 in 79 its prolific. Likewise longevity. Cas was here for a brief period, but Ivanhoe has stunk out the place under 4 managers. Cascarino we got 1.1m from Celtic for - a figure we could only dream about getting for Heskey
Heskey is possibly the worse Villa forward of all time, and deserves his place in the hall of fame rather than mere pretenders like Cascarino.
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Can we update the list when journeyman Keane arrives?
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Spot on.
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Can we update the list when journeyman Keane arrives?
Thats the spirit, get behind the lads rather than waiting to slag off new players -how depressing, at least let him fail before putting the boot in!
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Imagine your at a party,everythings going great,you've had a few drinks,the women are loving you,your witty and stylish you are the man,really there is no ingredient needed to make this party any better,then in walks Tony Cascarino.......
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Although i think Keane is shite, it would take a miracle for him to surpass Ivanhoe in 2 months. No-one's that bad.
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We signed Cascarino, should have signed his partner too. A certain Sheringham
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While Heskey has severe technical limitations, he's always worked hard for whichever team he's played for.
Cascarino was equally useless technically without being as mobile as Heskey. He also cost £1.5m - a lot of money at the time, upset the balance of the team (Ian Olney had been playing very well at centre forward without scoring a lot of goals and was very unlucky to be dropped), and ultimately cost us the league title that season.
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Heskey cost us 4th place almost single handedly. Ok, so he didn't insist on being picked but it amounts to the same thing. The current state of financial iffyness and desperation can be traced to that fatefull decision by MON to buy Emile to fire us into the CL places when the team was going along very nicely thank you. Heskey is also iconic in a way Cascarino could never hope to manage. Type emile into google and it will automatically predict your looking for emile heskey jokes and what's more there's plenty of them.
Heskey > Cascarino
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I tend to agree Greg. Without saying it's all his fault, very little has gone right since Heskey arrived.
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When I saw the title I thought it was a question of who would you play?
Although he's getting on a bit i'd play Cascarino.
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Ivanhoe all the way.
Cantscoreino will never be classed as an alltime great, but as Greg points out his goalscoring record for us -although not great- wasn't horrendous.
I'd put him in the bracket of many of our forwards down the years, someone who needed better service than he received. Particularly under Venglos. At Millwall he had Jimmy Carter supplying crosses to him all afternoon and Edward Sheringham was the perfect foil for him. At Villa, I recall one match v Arsenal at home where Cas- so starved of the ball- went out to the wing and crossed it in to... Chris Price.
Ivanhoe is just woeful. That FIFA spoof knocking about a few months ago was frighteningly accurate. He's one of those players who makes opposition fans genuinely guffaw.
Cantscorino does get minus points for the way he pronounces Birmingham though, shouldn't overlook that. Particularly since he lived in the area.
But in this Clash of the Shite'uns there can be only one...
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/228/thetumblingbear.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/thetumblingbear.jpg/)
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cascarino was worse just. how much did he cost in todays value? I cant remember . Stainrod was pretty bad until he scored 5 goals in a match I think .
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whittingham was a big disapointment too
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Having seen both extensively I'd had to say Heskey.
Heskey had the potential to scare the living daylights out of people, instead he spent most of the time nowhere near the penalty area, fell over everytime he shot with his left foot and generally looked a bit confused. I don't think he ever fulfilled the player he should have been and now really needs to drop a couple of divisions or jack it in.
Cascarino had very little potential unless you put the ball right on his bonce, we knew what we were getting and it changed our style of play which for the last part of 89-90 was pretty disastrous. Dublin and Crouch although a better players had a similar effect in that whenever we played we lumped it at them. I remember Dublin not playing and Carbone and Merson playing up front, all of a sudden we played some excellent football which was great to see.
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Casc was bad and might have cost us the title so probably more damaging. But Heskey to me is a worse footballer whilst playing for us.
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At least we didn't have to pay Cantscorino over £60K per week for three years :o
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What a shock, another thread to bash Heskey.
He doesn't even get close to being the worst striker (or signing) i've seen play for Villa. I wish every Villa signing in my Villa time had shown the same attitude as Heskey has, we'd have probably done a lot better over the last 30 years.
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whittingham was a big disapointment too
Though i don't think he was top quality,when he played he was played wide in a three with Saunders and Atkinson and it never worked,a bit like the Yorke,Collymore and Savo 'experiment' a couple of years later. I could never understand why managers bought players and never playedthem to their strengths.
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Heskey has rarely been first choice for us, he was signed as understudy to Carew. Cascarino was supposed to be the final piece in the jigsaw and was nowhere near good enough.
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Cascarino edges it, it was the worst possible signing at that time. Heskey is well bad though
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At the time i wanted us to sign Sheringham then I was disappointed when we got Cascarino who I think his far worse than Heskey.
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Just for the fact that he gets paid so much and contributes so little. Heskey.
I still struggle to believe we signed him in the first place and its even more remarkable that he's still a Villa player. I'm sure he may be a great bloke off the pitch but he's completely shite and become so embarrassing that its almost funny.
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Heskey. I was expecting better from Cascarino after his goalscoring for Millwall. Big disapointment. Heskey, well we knew he was crap before he joined us.
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What a shock, another thread to bash Heskey.
He doesn't even get close to being the worst striker (or signing) i've seen play for Villa. I wish every Villa signing in my Villa time had shown the same attitude as Heskey has, we'd have probably done a lot better over the last 30 years.
And if theyd shown his ability we would probably class tamworth as our blue square neighbours by now.
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Sorry Can't agree that Tony Hateley was anything other than an overpriced carthorse. Not for nothing did we dub him Douglas Bader. Great in the air, useless on the ground.
I recall as if it were yesterday the wave of incredulity that we managed to sell him for the same price as we paid for him.
Trouble is we bought him for 23k and sold him 3yrs later for 100k.
He was useless on the ground but had the hardest headers I have ever seen. He also scored 17,20 and 27 league goals in successive seasons. Bit unfair to link him falling bear and miss a lot.
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The disaster that turned out to be Tony Cascarino was entirely my fault. When we signed him I also was extremely excited. One of the first things I did was to load up Emlyn Hughes International Soccer on my Commodore 64 and re-edit the star striker in my team to be renamed Cascarino. He scored shitloads of goals, at least eight per game. I cannot help but feel that I ruined the balance in the universe between reality and computer games.
Actually, blame me for us not winning the league that season. It’s my entire fault...
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Think both are shite. Shame we didn't go for Mary "Alan Shearer" Poppins instead.
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Shearer would have been too young to make much of an impact at the time (though didn't he score a hat-trick on his debut for Southampton against Arsenal in the late 80's?).
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Sasa Curcic
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In terms of the context, Cantscorino was the biggest disappointment.
In terms of being difficult to justify, it has to be Emile.
In terms of worst absolute signings, then it is Balaban and Curcic tied in first place.
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Allback was shite too. Never saw Balaban in a Villa shirt. Can someone let me know why he was never given a chance after being signed? Seem to recall him playing in the CL and for Croatia after his Villa misadventure. Gilles de Bilde was crap too. Who could forget Marlon Harewood either?
Castoroilbottle was before my time in a Villa shirt but in an Irish shirt he was always a trier but with little ability.
Heskey though is absolutely pathetic. Agree MON changed around the side to accommodate Ivanhoe and our results suffered. The last thing we wanted then was a useless British big man centre forward at the end of his career on big wages. It's the last thing we need now too.
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SGT wanted Sherry Num instead of the Casca dude, according to several knowledgeable chaps on this board.
I have to agree with PeterWithesShin on Bambi's contribution and attitude since his arrival. Managers, AM being the latest in along line, consistently pick him because he follows their instructions.
It is also interesting to note that Bambi's most vitriolic critic was probably JG when he was our manager. He pretty much called him a cheat.
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I don't think Allback ever had a fair crack. IIRC the only time he started a batch of consecutive games he scored 4 in 7 and those goals kept us up.
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Didn't Allback's goal keep us up on the last day of the season a few years age?
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Cascarino............cost us the championship that season.I'm convinced if we had bought Le Tiss, or Harford instead then we would have won the League that year.
Wasn't the story something like GT wanting both him and Sheringham and was told no, went for Sheringham and was told by Reg Burr he could have Cas? Truth is, Cas was nothing without Sheringham.
The best thing I ever saw Cas do was the reverse pass lay off for Chris Price to run onto and score the winner against the Arse at Highbury after we had been pummelled virtually for 90 minutes.
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As I remember, the Cascarino rumours ran through most of the 89-90 season until we signed him. Should have stuck with Ian Olney.
Cascarino/Price at Arsenal. What a fantastic night!
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Didn't Allback's goal keep us up on the last day of the season a few years age?
Against Sunderland? I think we were OK with the draw anyway weren't we?
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Cascarino/Price at Arsenal. What a fantastic night!
One of the best of a great season.
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Didn't Allback's goal keep us up on the last day of the season a few years age?
During that run of 4 in 7 games he scored the only goals as we beat Chelsea and Sunderland at home in the 34th and 37th games of the season (02/03). We stayed up by 3 points.
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Heskey out for a month.
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If you listen to Cas as a pundit he sounds like he was a world beater
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I put Heskey but they were/are both useless.
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A certain David Geddes for me, a trier but absolutely useless in my opinion, I saw him miss one sitter from about six inches once, I couldn't believe it. Anyone remember T-Shirts bearing the slogan "I saw Geddes score"?
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It was often said that Cascarino couldn't hit a sow's arse with a banjo and it was true. I'd like to know if the same was true of Emile, trouble is, he's found to often slumped on his own arse when the opportunity comes.
A draw.
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It was often said that Cascarino couldn't hit a sow's arse with a banjo and it was true. I'd like to know if the same was true of Emile, trouble is, he's found to often slumped on his own arse when the opportunity comes.
A draw.
A 0-0 I assume.
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A certain David Geddes for me, a trier but absolutely useless in my opinion, I saw him miss one sitter from about six inches once, I couldn't believe it. Anyone remember T-Shirts bearing the slogan "I saw Geddes score"?
I saw Geddis score a hat-trick in a 6-0 win at Notts County in the Cup around 1982!
He was a decent solid trier,who probably wasn't cut out for the main striking role. You could fault him for ability but not for effort and I shall always remember him for the 4 goals he scored in the championship winning season, specially the two against the Blues in a really hard fought game.
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Heskey. He is a total and utter carthorse, and the worst signing of the lot from MON. Harewood was more use.
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A certain David Geddes for me, a trier but absolutely useless in my opinion, I saw him miss one sitter from about six inches once, I couldn't believe it. Anyone remember T-Shirts bearing the slogan "I saw Geddes score"?
Didn't Geddis get a couple at home to Small Heath in the championship year?
Christ. 30 years ago.
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I put Cascarino because I thought the question was who was better. So that should read Heskey as who was the worse signing. At least Cascarino didn't stink the place out as long.
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Peter Crouch !!
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Someone better tell Heskey it's his birthday otherwise he'll miss it.
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Bloody hell, what a question - worse signing between those two?
I'll actually say Cascarino, as I was about 12 at the time and mostly all I knew about him (other than seeing him once play for Millwall at VP the season both teams were newly promoted) was that he seemed to score a lot, so I thought we'd signed a 20-goal a season forward, the icing on the cake. Expectation was high.
Whereas, with Heskey, I knew what we were getting and, by and large, he's performed exactly as I thought he would.
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A certain David Geddes for me, a trier but absolutely useless in my opinion, I saw him miss one sitter from about six inches once, I couldn't believe it. Anyone remember T-Shirts bearing the slogan "I saw Geddes score"?
Didn't Geddis get a couple at home to Small Heath in the championship year?
Christ. 30 years ago.
He did, and a crucial equaliser against Southampton at VP in the run in when Morley scored the winner a minute later.
Not a great player but he has earnt his place in Villa history.
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Neither is as bad as Tony Hateley another in our tradition of useless lumps miraculously dumped on some other gullible club.
I'd say Cascarino just slightly worse than Heskey, but only just.
Have to differ with Brian on Hateley. I probably saw all his home games and in very poor sides his goal to games ratio was 68 to 127 according to Wiki. Better than most possibly better than any.
He was poor on the floor and was never really taken to by the fans. He did have some shockers, I still shudder thinking about the 0-0 FA cup game with Aldershot but he also had his moments. Dave Woodall mentioned on previous topics about Hateley that someone (I forget who) said we all expected so much of Hateley. If he scored from 6 yards we all moaned that he hadn't scored from 20 or 30 yards.
I awalys thought he ws more likely to score with his head from outside the area than his feet mind.
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Cascarino was almost worth it for the "Cascarino in the chair" song whilst being carried off injured
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I remember going to Derby for Cascarino's debut and Shilton pulling off a blinding save from a header he had. If that would have gone in, maybe he would have been flying for the rest of the season.
What actually happened was he didn't score for us until the last home match against Norwich (ironically the day we handed the title to Liverpool officially).
The fan's stuck with him though. The final straw being when he missed a sitter in a Cup tie against Wimbledon, resulting the Holte singing "what a waste of money !". There was no coming back from there.
I reckon I probably saw him score more goals at Villa Park for Millwall than I did for us.
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The final straw being when he missed a sitter in a Cup tie against Wimbledon, resulting the Holte singing "what a waste of money !". There was no coming back from there.
That was the defining moment of his Villa career. I remember it well, the Holte got behind him throughout the match as he'd had many chances but that particular one was the last straw. He couldn't believe it himself that he'd missed such an easy chance, still facing the crowd in the Holte he stood, curled his shoulders and dropped his head in total shame...as might well he should.
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A certain David Geddes for me, a trier but absolutely useless in my opinion, I saw him miss one sitter from about six inches once, I couldn't believe it. Anyone remember T-Shirts bearing the slogan "I saw Geddes score"?
I saw Geddis score a hat-trick in a 6-0 win at Notts County in the Cup around 1982!
He was a decent solid trier,who probably wasn't cut out for the main striking role. You could fault him for ability but not for effort and I shall always remember him for the 4 goals he scored in the championship winning season, specially the two against the Blues in a really hard fought game.
I remember being very nervous knowing Withe was out for that game but Geddis rose to the occasion, as you say, it wasn't for the lack of effort he failed, he just wasn't very good. Certainly not Ron's greatest signing.
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I just listened to Cascarino on My Sporting Life. He was full of praise for the Villa an said he was gutted that Graham Taylor was on his way out after signing him. Sounded really sorry that it didn't work out for him with us.
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This is why i wonder about managers sometimes, the concensus on these pages before they were bought was that Heskey and Harewood were diabolical and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole and we were proved right. I got to thinking has any Villa manager bought a player that most fans were against and been proved right. Have we ever got it wrong?
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This is why i wonder about managers sometimes, the concensus on these pages before they were bought was that Heskey and Harewood were diabolical and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole and we were proved right. I got to thinking has any Villa manager bought a player that most fans were against and been proved right. Have we ever got it wrong?
What was the reaction like to McGrath? I was only a wee nipper when we signed him.
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That he was unboubtedly a good player but had had off the field issues and some long lay offs through injury. I thought we'd signed a good player but wasn't sure how many games he'd play - a poor mans Jermaine Jenas if you like and certainly a gamble.
Little did I realise we'd just signed a player who would be the best player i've ever seen in a Villa shirt who barely missed a game.
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I was always of the opinion that Peter Withe was a bit of a donkey and to say I was disappointed when Ron signed him stating that he was the final piece in the jigsaw is putting it mildly. How wrong was I? the man turned out to be exactly that and having witnessed him in training at Bodymoor soon realised he was the consumate professional training exactly the way he played totaly committed. I remember him bollocking Sid for not putting his foot in in one particular challenge. Peter, you don't know me but please accept my humble apologies for doubting you.
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This is why i wonder about managers sometimes, the concensus on these pages before they were bought was that Heskey and Harewood were diabolical and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole and we were proved right. I got to thinking has any Villa manager bought a player that most fans were against and been proved right. Have we ever got it wrong?
Surely 7 million for Merse was questioned at the time considering his misdemeanors and the fact he was 30?