The Nearly Men

[hilts_coolerking]

Amazed that Christian Vieri hasn't been mentioned yet.

Yep I remember that.  Wasn't it when Gregory was in charge?

[Dave]

Not quite as exalted as some of the names on this thread, but the oft-linked Aaron Cresswell is joining West Ham for £2m.

[peter w]

Apparently Gudni Bergsson had a trial for us.

More than that. Wasn't he in the youth or reserve team/squad?

[QBVILLA]

Sheringham instead of Cascarino and we may have been closer, but not when lineker was linked we wouldn't.

Didn't we try and get him in the summer of '89 when he was leaving Barcelona?

[dave.woodhall]

Sheringham instead of Cascarino and we may have been closer, but not when lineker was linked we wouldn't.

Didn't we try and get him in the summer of '89 when he was leaving Barcelona?

The story broke during 1988-89, so it would have been at the time. As someone said earlier though, if we'd bought him we couldn't have afforded Paul McGrath.

[cdbearsfan]

I doubt we'd have got him. We'd spent the last four seasons either battling relegation, actually being relegated, or in the Second Division, while Spurs had just finished sixth. Add in the London factor and I suspect he wouldn't have fancied Villa much anyway.

[villan1975]

I maybe mad but weren't we linked with Roy Keane when he was at Forest? He was an absolute beast of a player then.

[Broughty-Villian]

Euro '96 I seem to recall that we were trying to get Patrick Kluivert, and I seem to recall us being mentioned with the boy Love? who tore us apart in a intertonto match?

[*shellac*]

We were interested in Ljungberg when he was in Halmstads?

Maybe Doug can forsee his modelling career with CK undies to drop the idea of signing him.

[Gregorys Boy]

So what this thread all boils down to is that we have been linked with most of the world's top players at some point, but more often than not have failed to get them, but then I wouldn't have it any other way, because at Villa we don't do World's best players, but if we did they would probably be the best in the world

[supertom]

I'm surprised Darren Bent's not on this thread. We got a top striker (then) in his prime from a club well above us in the league at that point and doing well, every other club in the league bar maybe the top 5 would have had him in their side at that point, we made an offer that couldn't be refused, and smashed our transfer record to smithereens.
That's just not really the Villa way. Our bigger name signings tend to have been either over the hill, or out of favour, or have some sort of issue that's held them back from being a top end player.

The day we signed Benty was a good day. It took a good couple of weeks for it sink in with me that we'd actually done it.


Have we signed Benni McCarthy yet?

We were linked a couple of times with Pascal Chimbonda IIRC. Possibly when he was at Wigan and then I think a couple of worrying links maybe a couple of years ago, by which point he was well past his best.

[Gregorys Boy]

For a long time during the O'Neill days I wanted us to sign Defoe we just got to a point where we had some good strikers, but lacked that slightly more clinical finisher, from that point of view it maybe that we signed Bent a couple of seasons too late, he did play a big part in keeping us up though.

[supertom]

For a long time during the O'Neill days I wanted us to sign Defoe we just got to a point where we had some good strikers, but lacked that slightly more clinical finisher, from that point of view it maybe that we signed Bent a couple of seasons too late, he did play a big part in keeping us up though.

We had a few tentative links to Defoe over the years I recall. It is a shame we've only had Bent when we're at the arse end of the table. Playing alongside either Big John or Gabby in O Neill's side and he'd have scored 20 a season. Would that have got us top 4? Maybe.

[dave.woodhall]

I maybe mad but weren't we linked with Roy Keane when he was at Forest? He was an absolute beast of a player then.

1993, but if Manchester United wanted him then he wasn't going anywhere else and as BFR said, we signed Andy Townsend who at that time was the better of the two. BFR never was one for long-term planning.

Talking of long-term, circa 1980 the best scout in football recommended we sign a young lad named Ian Rush.

[WarszaVillan]

I remember strong rumours that we were going to sign Alan Shearer, and later Gregory saying that if he had signed for use he'd have been chasing the title.