Underwhelmed when they signed but turned out to be pretty good

[uncle fester]

Obviously its all relative and some of these guys would not get anywhere near the team today

but step forward Sir Shaun Goater - remember being decidedly unimpressed that a guy trolling around with Rotherham would be able to do it at City - took a while to settle but once he was up and running he became a real goal machine

 

[Whitefield Blue]

Zinchenko

 

[dublinblue12]

Zabaleta

 

[Thaksinssoldier]

Kante

 

[Gingers Dad]

Mahrez

 

[chaddblue]

Zabaleta

Yep. He was a red card waiting to happen in his early days

Cancelo wasn’t great when he first joined either

 

[Barcon]

Bony. He turned out to be far better than I expected.

 

[whipper]

Isco

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Craig Bellamy

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Bellamy's a decent shout.

David James, I didn't expect much for what I considered to being a middling career keeper at the time, he was decent.

Mpenza was surprisingly resourceful given the shit he played with.

I'd say a lot of our recent signings can fall into that category somewhat, because we haven't made the big name signings compared to our rivals. The likes of Dias when we were hyped about Koulibaly all summer, Plodri after the Jorginho debacle, FFS was hardly Messi, Cancelo seemed a bit of an unknown given he was moving about a lot, they've all stepped up beyond what I think most thought they were capable of.

 

[greasedupdeafguy]

Delph

 

[Deleted member 81382]

Stones.

Never thought he'd turn in to the player he is today.

 

[samarasra]

Slightly underwhelmed when David Silva arrived, at the time would have preferred his attacking partner at Valencia, David Villa, (or better still both), but it turned out well and not so choosey now. I trust our transfer team.

 

[SatOnTheWall]

Andy Hill was very solid and reliable.

Neil McNab started off not so well but became a very important player for us.

 

[vmsuhail]

Usually have great expectations for any player joining, except maybe Bony or Javi Garcia, but they didn't end up great either.

 

[Dirty Harry]

If we change the ‘pretty good’ to ‘fuckin outstanding’ , oddly, Sergio and Dave, I just seemed to watch them whenever they had quiet to reasonable performances, and whilst you could tell they were skilful, I just didn’t get the hype and think they’d get anywhere near the levels they eventually did.
In my defence with Dave though, it seemed Valencia were playing him as a winger a lot of the time rather than a midfielder.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

Kevin Bond.
Signed by his dad and replaced crowd favourite Nicky Reid but ended up winning player of the year of which one such vote was mine.....

 

[urban genie]

Fitzroy Simpson

 

[J.G.Blue.]

Not a player but a manager, Brian Horton.

 

[TonyM]

Sterling. I thought he'd be a waste of money. He did much better than I thought he'd do but I'd sell him now if we can get anyone better. (Alvarez?)

Stones. I thought he'd be a waste of money. And for a long while he was but then he became awesome. Wouldn't sell him for bigger money now.

Walker. I thought he'd be a waste of money. And again he was terrible for a while. But for much longer he's been completely dependable and critical to how we play. I worry about how we replace him with anything even close to as good.

Rodri. I had hopes for him until he too looked a waste of money. But then he settled in and became a fantastic player for us.

The trend here is that I'm seldom right in the long run. . :-)