I thought he was a good player, but certainly not as good as he thought he was when he came back from the World Cup. We were a bloody good club for him to be at. We played at a good level. He had a good partnership with Mellberg. For me though, Olof was a better player and ten times the man Alpay is/was. In truth we struggled for a few years to replace Alpay with a partner as good for the big Viking. It's a shame he turned into such a plonker as he could have partnered Mellberg for a few more years and we may have had a more stable backline in those years between latter Gregory and early O'Leary.
We got by that season playing Ronny Johnsen who on the rare occasions he wasn't injured did fine and Dublin as a CB who did less fine (Bolton semi final).Laursen actually turned up six months later so you could say he was Alpay's replacement although of course we had to wait two years for him to play regularly.
Quote from: SoccerHQ on November 10, 2015, 10:27:25 PMWe got by that season playing Ronny Johnsen who on the rare occasions he wasn't injured did fine and Dublin as a CB who did less fine (Bolton semi final).Laursen actually turned up six months later so you could say he was Alpay's replacement although of course we had to wait two years for him to play regularly. Ronnie Johnsen played 50 games for us in two seasons, which for a squad player who was 35 when he left is a bit more than rare occasions.
Quote from: dave.woodhall on November 10, 2015, 10:30:44 PMQuote from: SoccerHQ on November 10, 2015, 10:27:25 PMWe got by that season playing Ronny Johnsen who on the rare occasions he wasn't injured did fine and Dublin as a CB who did less fine (Bolton semi final).Laursen actually turned up six months later so you could say he was Alpay's replacement although of course we had to wait two years for him to play regularly. Ronnie Johnsen played 50 games for us in two seasons, which for a squad player who was 35 when he left is a bit more than rare occasions. That surprises me considering we signed him part way through 2002/03. Guess in 03/04 with the Carling cup run we probably played 50 games that year or near enough, it did seem he'd play a few, get injured and then Dublin would have to fill in for a game or two. Actually mentioning that, I remember that SHA game when we were 2-0 up (Hitz scoring a screamer). Think Johnson had to go off injured with 20 minutes left, him and Mellberg had barely given them a kick and of course we collapsed with him off the pitch.Good defender though, you could see why he was at Man. United for years.
I seem to recall Alpay doing the idiotic ssshhhh after scoring against Portsmouth at Villa Park in a rare win against Redknapp.
Alpay proves more trouble than he's worth By Graham Taylor25 Oct 2003Patience finally ran out at Aston Villa this week when their troublesome Turk, Alpay Ozalan, commonly known in the dressing room as Alfie, was released from his contract. His spat with David Beckham during the Euro 2004 qualifier in Istanbul was, it seems, the final straw.As his manager during my 15-month reign at Villa Park, I had become accustomed to having to deal with the differing moods of Alfie the person, but could never get to grips with Alfie the player simply because he was so rarely available for selection.Before that crucial Turkey v England game earlier this month he saw fit to give an interview with a tabloid newspaper in which he was quoted as saying that I told lies about him and that I was too old.l I cannot do anything about the latter accusation, but rather than take legal action, I am going to try to explain what it really was like managing him and how difficult it is these days for a manager to handle a 'problem player'.I first saw Alpay play for the Villa in my role as non-executive director, when John Gregory was manager, and must admit to being reasonably impressed at his central-defensive partnership with the Swedish player Oli Mellberg. It was, however, noticeable that on some occasions Mellberg had to rescue Alpay from his poor positional play.On becoming manager I did a check on the background of those players about whom I felt I needed more information. My Turkish informant advised me that Villa had paid Fenerbahce about £2 million more than was expected for the player. Alpay, he said, was a decent player but would never admit to any mistakes in a match being his fault. Oh, and he was inclined to make a couple of major errors each game. Was that worrying? Not at the time, because Alfie had not played since being injured some three months previously. I thought I would have the time to assess him as a person, which for me is as crucial as to how good a player I may judge him.In fact, almost as I took up the managerial reigns I was informed that Alfie had booked himself into a clinic in Munich because he was not satisfied with the treatment or diagnosis of his injury. Subsequently, the club's medical staff presented me with Alpay's day-to-day diagnosis and treatment dossier. As I was unable to meet Alpay due to his absence I authorised the physiotherpist Jim Walker to go and spend a week with the player at the clinic to observe what type of treatment he was receiving. At the end of the season, Alfie would claim that no one from the club had shown an interest in him when he was in the clinic and that he had paid £25,000 of his own money in medical fees.In contract negotiations after the World Cup the club agreed to pay his fees, even though he had gone without their authority. Understandably, though, they would like the invoices for the fees. To my knowledge no such invoices or medical reports have been presented to Aston Villa. There was rumour that the Turkish FA had both paved the way for Alpay to attend the clinic and looked after the expense in their endeavours to have him fit for the World Cup.Consequently I only saw Alpay on two or three occasions in the latter part of the 2001-02 season. One of those was when he informed the club's press officer that he would be returning to the club for the last home game of the season against Southampton. Please announce that on the club's website, he requested. He duly turned up. He ran the customary end of season lap of honour with the other players, kissing the club crest on his blazer.He seemed happy and proclaimed himself fit and so, as we had one remaining away game at Chelsea, we agreed that he would report to the training ground on the following Tuesday to prepare for the possibility of him making an appearance, even if only as a substitute. The next time I saw him was in Hong Kong where he was playing for Turkey in a mini-tournament in preparation for the World Cup. Through the Turkish officials I arranged a meeting with him and asked him why he had not reported to the club as agreed.His reply was that he had told Jim Walker he would not be coming, and that I must understand that this World Cup was a of crucial importance to him and that he had not wanted to risk being injured against Chelsea. Jim Walker knew nothing of the so-called conversation.I watched Turkey play all their World Cup games. I saw Alfie get sent off against Brazil and then listened to the announcement of him being nominated in a best World Cup squad.Turkey were in the World Cup finals for only the second time and had reached the semi-finals. A magnificient achievement and one where football politics at this level meant there had to be a Turkish player in the World team. There were too many good forward players from other countries. Not too many outstanding centre backs, though I would still put Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell ahead of Alfie, but England had been knocked out at the quarter-final stage.Now the problems really started. In the World Cup XI and with Pini Zahavi as his agent, who could really blame Alfie for thinking that the next club was Real Madrid, Juventus, Barcelona, or AC Milan? Forget Aston Villa, even though there were still two years left on his contract. Surprisingly, I did have some sympathy for him. Even though he was 29 at the time and not the most mature person. Who would not be thinking along those lines? Whispers in his ears promising massive financial rewards would indeed be hard to resist.Where did this leave Aston Villa? With a player who was convinced he was getting a move to a bigger and better club and that this would happen before the August transfer window closed.I have to say that as his manager I was fervently hoping that a club would come in for him as I had witnessed his attitude before and after the World Cup and was not convinced that he was reliable as a person off the pitch or as a player on it. These are decisions that managers have to take and we do not get them right all of the time, but I was not prepared to tolerate Alpay's lack of commitment to the club.Understandably the Villa chairman, Doug Ellis, would not make public the asking price, but it was being made abundantly clear by Alpay and his representatives that as the transfer market had collapsed Villa should not expect to get back the £5 million-plus that they had paid Fenerbache. Try explaining that to Doug! As the days passed and no club came in for him, it was intimated that Alfie would not be averse to considering improved financial terms in a new contract. So Villa were now in a position of either selling Alpay at a reduced fee or giving him a new contract on better terms. By the time the transfer window had closed there had not been one offer for the player and all my media comments seemed to have revolved around Alpay. This was to continue for pretty well the rest of the season.I was not prepared to be reliant on Alfie and signed Ronny Johnsen on a free transfer knowing that a fit Ronny and Oli Mellberg would be the best centre-back pairing in the club. The number of meetings and phone calls with Alpay and his representatives - and the latter changed on numerous occasions as the season went on - did little to persuade me that anything but a move for the player was the right thing for everybody.But there had to be a buying club for that to happen. The accusation was that Villa were pricing him out of the market. That was not true. As far as I was aware no club had put in a bid for him and I am sure the chairman would have told me if he had received one.The situation was dragging everyone down and unfortunately Alfie's training began to turn for the worse. In small-sided games he would play in a wide position, showing little real interest and from being at the front in certain training sessions he began to appear at the back. All the signs of a 'problem player'.When he was away on international duty it was a standard joke with the Villa coaching staff that I would have more calls from the media in the week because he would be sounding off in the belief that what he said abroad would not come back to England. He still does that.There is one national journalist who sat next to him on a flight, explained who he was and did an interview with him. Later Alfie denied that he had spoken to him.He would give you the charm offensive and probably then a denial of what he was supposed to have said. Then his story would change two or three times. Hard to follow, believe me. There was no real problem in the Turkey game until Alpay's reaction to David Beckham's penalty miss. Only those involved know what happened in the tunnel at half-time, but would any of that happened if Alpay had not been so silly? I gave him one final chance to ressurect his career with the Villa by playing him in an away game at Charlton, but the reaction by a large section of the Villa supporters told me that even they had enough.My problem was that I could not convince Ellis to move him on for next to nothing, and yet all the time his actions were eating away at the standards and values I was expecting from the other Villa players, especially the younger ones. We needed Alpay and a couple of other players to leave, but Doug found it impossible to cut his losses. The problem of being a public limited company and not just a football club perhaps?It is extremely difficult for a club when dealing with a 'problem player' because there is little disciplinary action they can take and what they can do has little effect on the player's circumstances. In Alfie's case he was not prepared to play in the reserve team and to be truthful it would not have been beneficial for the younger players if he had played as his attitude was not right. They deserved better than that.I have managed hundreds of players throughout my career and it is impossible to get on well with everyone. There will always be problems, but Alfie was a major disappointment to me because he just could not be trusted.I never knew from one day to another what he was going to say or how he was going to act or indeed whether I would get another message that he was ill and could not report for training. That meant yet another visit by the club doctor.Alpay is a proud man and, on many occasions, a friendly man and I have not liked what has happened to him. But I feel sorry for Villa and for the chairman. And as is usual it is the supporters who have been let down.Kissing the badge means nothing. It should not be necessary. Players should show supporters how much they care by how they play and by how they conduct themselves. And if Alfie had come back from the World Cup intent on showing the Villa supporters what a good player he was, then he might just have got the transfer he was after.Now, in extraordinary circumstances, he has got his move. Is that what it's all been about, Alfie?
I thought he'd died when I saw the title of the thread.Yep, the good World Cup he had went to his head. He was quite good before that.
Sir Graham; the voice of reason.
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Topic: Alpay - your memories (Read 17497 times)
