FourFourTwo magazine's 25 Best Players With Five Or Fewer Games In The PL

[Damo70]

ForFourTwo magazine have listed their 25 best players with five or fewer appearances in the Premier League.

The top five were  -

1 Roberto Mancini
2 Andy Goram
3 Ricardo Quaresma
4 Karim Bagheri
5 Alexandre Pato

Luc Nilis was in 6th place, Michael Bradley was in 23rd place and Didier Agathe was in 25th place.

[eamonn]

Where's our Chukwuemeka?

Would love a Nilis now, mind. Teach Ollie a few tricks. Our Cavani.

[Monty]

Can anyone think of a bigger might-have-been player for us than Nilis? Always makes me sad to think of it.

[cdbearsfan]

My list would probably include:

Messi
Maradona
Pele
(Johan) Cruyff
Puskas
Beckenbauer
Di Stefano
(Gerd) Muller
Yashin
Chukwuemeka

[olaftab]

Any mention of legend that was Bosko Balaban? I can’t believe he would have playec more than 5.

[Tayls_7]

I remember we kept being linked or linking ourselves with Quaresma.

[Brend'Watkins]

Can anyone think of a bigger might-have-been player for us than Nilis? Always makes me sad to think of it.

Absolutely this. He is the one player in relatively recent times who’d have been the business for at least two seasons.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Agathe was dreadful for us. Had clearly lost all his pace, but still kept trying to beat people by knocking the ball a past them

[cdbearsfan]

Still better than Bradley who somehow ended up above him in 23rd. Can only assume George Weah's cousin made the top twenty.

[Legion]

Can anyone think of a bigger might-have-been player for us than Nilis? Always makes me sad to think of it.

I can't.

[Somniloquism]

Can anyone think of a bigger might-have-been player for us than Nilis? Always makes me sad to think of it.

I can't.

He would have been our Bergkamp / Zola

[Legion]

What could have been.

[SoccerHQ]

Can anyone think of a bigger might-have-been player for us than Nilis? Always makes me sad to think of it.

Was in Holte that day for Chelsea match and got a brilliant view of his volley, knew it was going in as soon as he struck it.

He had a really good pedigree, scored a couple of goals v ROI (sorry Eamonn) in 1997 that got Belgium to world cup 98 and linked up well with Van Nistelrooy at PSV so really could've been that experienced 30 + that could've come in and done a cracking job for 2-3 seasons. Goal v Chelsea was Zola/Bergkamp standard so could've easily been that sort of player for us, think Johan Cruyff was big fan of him from his time in Holland.

Could see that logic as in those days we were far too dependant on just crossing for Dublin to try to head in so him and Merson linking up through the season would've been fun to watch.

Said before 2000/01 season is just to me the Nilis volley, Nilis injury and relegating Coventry right at the end. Any other memorable matches/moments from that season as struggling to recall any!

We reallly did become very dull to watch under Gregory then so to me most non-descript season we've had in last 20 years although 16/17 runs it close.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

Regarding Nilis I’m sure original Ronaldo had him as the best player he played with.

Edit. If you look on YouTube at his time at Anderlecht and PSV, you can see why Ronaldo had that view, outstanding player.

[Dave]

Was just about to say, his YouTube highlights reel bows to nobody. It's like crossing Grealish with Le Tissier.