“I forgot he played for us” XI

[Les Cabbage]

With Anthony Stokes’ patter coming to the fore once again, I had a thought about all the players that have came to my club, gave it laldy in a press conference and then left with making no or minimal impact and put together an XI of players that either rarely or never played to the point where I just totally forgot they played for us (or were employed by us).

Who are the 11 players that you know they played for your club but just can’t remember them playing or ever doing anything for your club whatsoever.

Here’s mine below in the standard 4-4-2 format:

Tomas Cerny: I was delighted with this signing, signed after a really good spell with Partick and I think everyone expected him to take the gloves off of Mark fucking Oxley, he somehow didn’t even make one appearance before moving on and doing pretty well again. Bizarre.

 

Miquel Nelom - We’ve had full backs that have played less but this one was strange, signed by Neil Lennon from Feyenoord, had champions league experience, was a decent age yet somehow was hugely ineffectual and unable to break into the team, 3 appearances then back over to Holland.

Jonathan Spector - 36 caps for USA, around 15 years experience in the English Premiership league yet couldn’t oust Paul Hanlon. I vaguely remember coming on against Hearts at Tynecastle, I think we won that game but I was probably (definitely) far too intoxicated to recall what he was like, Wikipedia suggests one appearance to that matches up.

Brian McLean - Yes, he played for Hibs, was absolutely rubbish in a 1-1 draw at East End Park when Neil Lennon drew his way to the championship title, that’s about all.

Adam Eckersley - Was signed as cover for Stevenson, from Hearts with the Hearts fans all spewing because he was good for them apparently? Remember him warming up a lot but I don’t think he ever played a game.

 

Duncan Watmore - Has gone on to star in the premier league (although league 1 now) and won player of the month award I’m sure, decent career down south, looked electric on his debut but sure he was absolutely halfed and then looked too scared to do anything, part of the team that got relegated but again, I forgot he was even there.

Gael Bigirimana - I’m sure we paid Motherwell a fee for him on deadline day, came on once in a 2-1 defeat to Aberdeen under Eddie May/Grant Murray and looked okay but was never seen again

Ryan Gauld - Again, Ryan Gauld played for Hibs, loaned from Sporting Lisbon, played a couple, got injured, the end, fantastic assist against Elgin City in the cup, seems to be doing well in Portugal now though, hopefully kicks on and makes a mark for Scotland.

Jake Sinclair - I remember we signed him on loan from Southampton, was absolutely electric on Football Manager which lead me to believe he’d do well, looked okay off the bench against Cowdenbeath, played another couple then was sent back packing, most notably remembered for doing his business down Salamander Street and accidentally sending a picture to his mrs of said Salamander Street supplier.

 

Phil Airey - Signed on loan under Colin Calderwood, we were told by lots of Newcastle fans how good he was going to be, came on away to Killie in a 4-1 hammering for 10 mins, decided he didn’t fancy it and was sent back, last seen at Blyth Spartans, sounds about right.

Steve Pinau - Another one who was class on Football Manager, France U19 international signed on loan from Genoa, I remember absolutely nothing about this guy other than a goal in a home league cup defeat to Greenock Morton. 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

Ooooft that's a good list. I'd swap Matt Thornhill for Big, Joe keenan for Hauls, and Michael Hart for Eckersley

[staggy1929]

Daniel Bachman - Ended up being a good keeper but never got a chance with us

Jim Fenlon - Was signed by Derek Adams and was meant to be quite good. Wasn't good... Opposite of good.

Tim Dreesen - another Derek Adams special. Once cost a club a million pounds... Terrible played about 5 times.

Abdoulaye Mieite- Signed in the hope of being an experienced head in defense, made 0 appearances.

Jeremy Latouchent - Young guy who was meant to be really promising. Ended up at St Mirren I think.

Milan Lalkovic- Ex Chelsea and Portsmouth, never really got a chance for some reason.

Charlie Adam - Totally forgot he played for us until I seen him sign for Dundee the other day. Scored from the halfway line for us.

Chris Burke - played a few for us and was different class, then spent the rest of the season injured and went to killie.

Marc Klok - one of the Dutch 4 that signed, probably the least promising of the 4 at the time. plays in asia now if I remember right. Hopefully he knows how to play a forward pass now

Darvydas Cernas - a distinguished international forward who barely played and his most memorable moment was getting put in goals against St Mirren when Mark Brown got sent off.

Skhodran Mustafi- Played for some really good sides across europe. He was scared of the ball.

 

[big al]

Bryson will be a certainty for this in the future. Forgot he was even at Aberdeen while he was there!

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, big al said:

Bryson will be a certainty for this in the future. Forgot he was even at Aberdeen while he was there!

Bit like Gary Mcdonald, even when he was in the starting XI

[Les Cabbage]

Ricardo Vaz Te is an even bigger “I forgot he played for us” as I forgot to even include him in this list.

Did well at the top level in England. Signed for us. Scored against Hearts. Left. Did well at a the top level in England again. Bizarrely didn’t even stand out in a Hibs team that finished 10th.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Biggest name was Guillermo Amor, 10 years and 311 appearances for Barcelona, bit of a legend for them, comes to Livi, makes 3 appearances, and pretty much fades from the memory of making any impact at the club, then disappears, if it wasn't for him having such a good pedigree i doubt i'd even have remembered him having signed for us, maybe i just imagined it.

Pascal Nouma, our infamous French signing that became an in joke with Livi fans, questioning if he actually existed, as no one had ever seen him, not sure now but i think he was permanently injured and never kicked a ball for us, biggest waste of a signing, although now maybe Stokes takes that trophy. 

Most recent is a French player who played against Alloa as a trialist and looked no bad, then we signed him and i don't think he played a game, got injured and i can't find a game where he played to get his name, truly have forgotten him, can only remember he was French and went back to France halfway through the season after we agreed to terminate his contract.

 

[Dons_1988]

When Gary Naysmith is on the radio talking about playing for Aberdeen I have to double take. 

Genuinely can't remember a minute of his time with us.

[TheDon99]

Daniel Bachman - Ended up being a good keeper but never got a chance with us
Jim Fenlon - Was signed by Derek Adams and was meant to be quite good. Wasn't good... Opposite of good.
Tim Dreesen - another Derek Adams special. Once cost a club a million pounds... Terrible played about 5 times.
Abdoulaye Mieite- Signed in the hope of being an experienced head in defense, made 0 appearances.
Jeremy Latouchent - Young guy who was meant to be really promising. Ended up at St Mirren I think.
Milan Lalkovic- Ex Chelsea and Portsmouth, never really got a chance for some reason.
Charlie Adam - Totally forgot he played for us until I seen him sign for Dundee the other day. Scored from the halfway line for us.
Chris Burke - played a few for us and was different class, then spent the rest of the season injured and went to killie.
Marc Klok - one of the Dutch 4 that signed, probably the least promising of the 4 at the time. plays in asia now if I remember right. Hopefully he knows how to play a forward pass now
Darvydas Cernas - a distinguished international forward who barely played and his most memorable moment was getting put in goals against St Mirren when Mark Brown got sent off.
Skhodran Mustafi- Played for some really good sides across europe. He was scared of the ball.
 

Shkodran Mustafi? As in the Arsenal and German CB? The World Cup winner? Played for Ross County? I can't see anything online about this...

[Ranaldo Bairn]

It was Orhan Mustafi.

[Ric]

There are people with far better knowledge of our "fringe" players than I, so I'm not going to submit a list. However for any Saints fan that does, it has to have Iain Munro as manager. For those who don't know he lasted all of 6 days or so before leaving to go to Raith. Made all the more puzzling due to him being an ex player for us (with nigh on 200 appearances).

[staggy1929]

10 minutes ago, TheDon99 said:

1 hour ago, staggy1929 said:

Daniel Bachman - Ended up being a good keeper but never got a chance with us
Jim Fenlon - Was signed by Derek Adams and was meant to be quite good. Wasn't good... Opposite of good.
Tim Dreesen - another Derek Adams special. Once cost a club a million pounds... Terrible played about 5 times.
Abdoulaye Mieite- Signed in the hope of being an experienced head in defense, made 0 appearances.
Jeremy Latouchent - Young guy who was meant to be really promising. Ended up at St Mirren I think.
Milan Lalkovic- Ex Chelsea and Portsmouth, never really got a chance for some reason.
Charlie Adam - Totally forgot he played for us until I seen him sign for Dundee the other day. Scored from the halfway line for us.
Chris Burke - played a few for us and was different class, then spent the rest of the season injured and went to killie.
Marc Klok - one of the Dutch 4 that signed, probably the least promising of the 4 at the time. plays in asia now if I remember right. Hopefully he knows how to play a forward pass now
Darvydas Cernas - a distinguished international forward who barely played and his most memorable moment was getting put in goals against St Mirren when Mark Brown got sent off.
Skhodran Mustafi- Played for some really good sides across europe. He was scared of the ball.
 

Shkodran Mustafi? As in the Arsenal and German CB? The World Cup winner? Played for Ross County? I can't see anything online about this...

Wrong one... Orhan Mustafi haha

[TAFKAC]

29 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Biggest name was Guillermo Amor, 10 years and 311 appearances for Barcelona, bit of a legend for them, comes to Livi, makes 3 appearances, and pretty much fades from the memory of making any impact at the club, then disappears, if it wasn't for him having such a good pedigree i doubt i'd even have remembered him having signed for us, maybe i just imagined it.

Pascal Nouma, our infamous French signing that became an in joke with Livi fans, questioning if he actually existed, as no one had ever seen him, not sure now but i think he was permanently injured and never kicked a ball for us, biggest waste of a signing, although now maybe Stokes takes that trophy. 

Most recent is a French player who played against Alloa as a trialist and looked no bad, then we signed him and i don't think he played a game, got injured and i can't find a game where he played to get his name, truly have forgotten him, can only remember he was French and went back to France halfway through the season after we agreed to terminate his contract.

 

Nouma definitely played for Livi. He came off the bench in the game where Kachloul scored with his first (?) touch against Dunfermline. I'm fairly certain Nouma got booked for crunching someone as well.

[NorthernLights]

I tried to stick to the last ten years and just went through our Wikipedia articles for each season looking at the transfers.  These were the names that caught my eye, and not in a good way.

Adam Collin

Gary Naismith
Donervon Daniels
Callum Morris
Ryan McLaughlin

Andrew Driver
Greg Tansey
Chidi Nwakali
Mohamed Chalali

Joe Nuttall
Danny Uchechi

I think Morris is the only player above who didn't make a first team appearance.  However looking back, his transfer was so pointless and made no sense at the time he deserves his slot.

Edited September 17, 2020 by NorthernLights

[coprolite]

Just had a look through the last 20 years of squads. 

Nicky weaver in goal. Former England youth, ex man city, couldn't displace clangers. 

Donervorn Daniels - on loan from west brom apparently. 

Danny Griffin and Neil Mcfarlane i can remember playing (was it st j & hearts?) but not for us. 

Paul Marshall.?. 

Some lad called chidiebere nkwali on loan from man city in 2018 kind of rings a bell. I've a vague notion he might have had a moment of skill and done nothing else. 

Most of our shite has been bad enough to be memorable. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

2 minutes ago, TAFKAC said:

Nouma definitely played for Livi. He came off the bench in the game where Kachloul scored with his first (?) touch against Dunfermline. I'm fairly certain Nouma got booked for crunching someone as well.

Can only remember Kachloul in that Pars game. Can't remember anything at all about Nouma, other than he never seemed to play for us. Who was the French guy last season that went back to France after spending all of his time injured, wasn't Pepe as at least he played some games, was a LB?

[coprolite]

3 minutes ago, NorthernLights said:

I tried to stick to the last ten years and just went through our Wikipedia articles for each season looking at the transfers.  These were the names that caught my eye, and not in a good way.

Adam Collin

Gary Naismith
Donervon Daniels
Callum Morris
Ryan McLaughlin

Andrew Driver
Greg Tansey
Chidi Nwakali
Mohamed Chalali

Joe Nuttall
Danny Uchechi

I think Morris is the only player above who didn't make a first team appearance.

Despite having just looked through squad lists I'd completely forgotten about Driver and even now have no idea who Ryan Mclaughlin is. 

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Despite having just looked through squad lists I'd completely forgotten about Driver and even now have no idea who Ryan Mclaughlin is. 

Full back on loan from Liverpool.

Last seen when lower league diddies Hibs knocked us out the league cup and thankfully (I don't think) never again.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Dons_1988

[TAFKAC]

4 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Can only remember Kachloul in that Pars game. Can't remember anything at all about Nouma, other than he never seemed to play for us. Who was the French guy last season that went back to France after spending all of his time injured, wasn't Pepe as at least he played some games, was a LB?

If I was picking out a Livi team, it would probably be something along the lines of...

Giordano Vanin or Kevin Walker (GK)

Salvador Capin or David Cowan (RB)
Phil Cave (LB)
Julius Raliukonis (CB)
Ryan Harding CB)
Dubi Tesevic (MR) - He might have been a ML but struggling for that one position.
Jakob Hottek (ML)
Milan Thomas or Grant McCann (MC)
Davide Luongo (MC)
Nocko Jokovic (SC)
Lewis Allan or Thomas Orr (SC)

[G51]

We've had a few. But simply selecting banter-era players is too easy, so I've excluded that timeline:

GK: Jesper Christiansen. Signed him when he was 22 after we suffered a rake of injuries. Stayed for 3 years, played 3 games. His debut was a 3-0 defeat at home to Killie. Dsastrous all round, and an even less memorable keeper than Lee Robinson.

DR: Phil Bardsley. Signed on loan from Man Utd. Did actually score in one of his five games, against Falkirk. Those fives games were five of the first ten, and he was never to be seen again. Loan ripped up in December.

DC::Christian Dailly. How many people actually remember Christian Dailly playing for Rangers? Only those of us unfortunate enough to still have lingering memories of Kaunas. Really one of those "oh aye, he did play there" transfers.

DC: Andy Webster. Came as part of an infamously protracted legal battle which involved some very above-board transfer dealings between ourselves, Wigan and Hearts. I think we signed him to give our physio's something to do.

DL: Matt Polster. He's technically a right back, but our LB's have by and large all made a reasonably-sized impact so he's being shoehorned in. Was famous for having a tidy bird. They came over from California to watch him play once, he didn't get off the bench.

RM: Aaron Niguez. 3 league appearances, signed on loan from Valencia. Actually went on to have a decent enough career bouncing around the lower end of La Liga / top of the Segunda Divison.

CM: Hamed Namouchi. Jesus Christ.

CM: Matt McKay. Signed under Ally from Australia just before the Unpleasantness hit. He's a Brisbane Roar legend, but only played 3 league games with us.

LM: Lee Martin. Signed at the same time as Bardsley. Put it this way, he's third in the list of Lee Martin (footballer) on Wikipedia and I've never heard of the two guys before him. 7 league appearances, 10 total.

CF: Bajram Fetai. Signed him as a youngster from B93 after he scored 10 goals in 26 for them, couldn't break into our team. Loaned him to Inverness in January, he couldn't break into their team either. Released the season after. Just another piece of detritus drifting in the stream of Alex McLeish's Rangers transfers. Ended up playing a lot of games at Nordsjaelland.

CF: Andrius Velicka. Who remembers the infamous Ricky Foster - Andrius Velicka loan swap deal we did with Aberdeen? That's the only reason people remember him.