We've Signed who!? Unfathomable Villa Signings

[pooligan]

I remember that Tommy Craig cracker on his debut. As you say he did very little while he was at Villa Park,but i seem to remember he picked up a rather serious injury not long after signing and was never the same when he came back .

[Zhong Yi]

Dean Spink
Andy Comyn
Steve Sims
David Hunt
Robert Pires

Spink in particular. GT flogs Alan McInally for a million and hopes to replace him with Dean Spink from Shrewsbury.

forgot to include Malcom Allen.

[The Left Side]

Did Dean Spink actually play in the first team, plus it was Gabor Kiraly!

[nigel]

John Fashanu
Wayne Routledge
Frank MacAvennie

Frank McAvennie?
Have to say I don't remember him coming.

How about David Unsworth???

[pooligan]

We signed  Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games

[SteveN]

Mike Pejic - why?

[Damo70]

Venglos. I still think John Ward should have had a chance to carry on Sir Graham's good work. Also, when we needed a battling, experienced goalscorer to help us fight relegation in March '87 we were promised David Speedie and got Warren Aspinall. He did his fair share the next year but wasn't the man for the relegation battle. Having said that I'm not sure Maradona could have kept us up at that point. And what was Ron Saunders doing get rid of Gidman and Gray and replacing them with a converted winger from Chelsea and some centre forward from Newcastle in the second division?

[Pat McMahon]

We signed  Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games

Pooligan, if i recall correctly it was at the beginning of the 1992 season. I was back home from France and got to a midweek 1-1 v Leeds (then champions) and the Saturday game v Southampton I think (my memory is hazy here as I left a Friday wedding in Glasgow at 7am to catch a National Express coach back to Brum and in my pissed logic decided to drink all the way home to avoid a hangover). I seem to recall McAvennie coming on and weeping at the state of our strike force. Luckily Deano arrived a couple of weeks later.

To be fair to McAvennie he was very flattering about the Villa - big club, great opportunity, thanks to big Ron for giving me a last fling at the big time etc, but i think he was either aging or struggling from a long term serious injury. I don't remember him ever scoring for us.

[pooligan]

Pat,you recall it correctly, it was indeed the start of the 1992 season . Looking through the archives he never actually started a game for us,coming on as a sub against Southampton,Chelsea and Crystal Palace and never scored a goal. Can you remember what the name was of his sexy page 3 girlfriend was?

[Pat McMahon]

Pat,you recall it correctly, it was indeed the start of the 1992 season . Looking through the archives he never actually started a game for us,coming on as a sub against Southampton,Chelsea and Crystal Palace and never scored a goal. Can you remember what the name was of his sexy page 3 girlfriend was?

Pooligan, no I can't. I was living in Paris at the time and the page 3 "stunners" were rather trashy and low quality compared to the charms of the female citizens of the City of Light.

[noodles_]

The Togolese Zidane.

[Witton Warrior]

Pires

Lots of the others didn't do a great deal but he actually cost us points!

[Clark W Griswold]

We signed  Frank McAvennie on loan .Think it was Big Ron who signed him. I cant rememember him playing many games

I definately remember McAvennie being at the club, but i was certain it was under GT. Wikipedia however agrees with you (Big Ron). It suggests it was just before Deano and that he played a few games. This is strange, because i have a good memory and don't actually remember watching him play for us, i went to all home games and quite a few away at the time. Does anyone actually remember him playing? Maybe he came on as a sub?
EDIT - Just read other posts above, so question answered. Doh!

Possibly the 2 daftest signings for me were Schmeichal and Pires, 2 outstanding players that came out of the blue, but you were surprised they hadn't retired already let alone playing at the top level.

Leonhardsen was one of the most underwhelming but i actually think he did quite well for us when he played. He scored a couple of goals from right midfield for a start. Calderwood similar, also did quite well.

I was quite pleased with Fash signing. I was more astonished by the bloke who signed around the same time, Phil King, who was not even close to as good as what we had.

Most outrightly disappointing though were Carson on loan, Knight, Salifou and particularly Harewood. Here we were, thinking we were going to do a slightly toned down version of Chelsea, and we were signing the players above. My excitement of the previous 9 months or so pretty much disappeared.

[cheltenhamlion]

Frank McAvennie set up a goal against Southampton that year.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

The 3 we signed after Ron's commentary trip to the World cup in 1994.

We hoped for some World cup talent, we got

John Fashanu, Phil King and Nil Lamptey.

King was passable, but the other two were shit.