Player Downgrades

On paper they were upgrades, unfortunately they played on grass.

 

Andrew Davies -> Nathan Clarke
James Meredith -> Adam Chicksen
Tony McMahon -> Kelvin Mellor


Might be unfair but Wyke -> Doyle? Trying to use Eoin Doyle as a target man isn't exactly his fault, but he was cack.

 

Stuart McCall - Ian Banks
There will be no bigger downgrade than that

 

Sean McCarthy- Neil Tolson
Aiden Davison - Robert Zabica

 

More recently,

Elliot Watt -> Richie Smallwood
Cullen -> Josh Wright
Foulds -> Toji Bola
Mark Marshall -> Gilliead

 

Cullen's replacement was Jake Reeves not Wright. Wright replaced Vincelot, still a massive downgrade.

 

Peter Beagrie => Lee Sharpe, good lord

 

Oh there was................... Stuart McCall to Ian McCall

 

I'd take Smallwood all day over Watt, has a lot more to his game than Watt who could only give away stupid freekicks and play the hollywood balls. Cullen to anyone apart from Didier Deschamps would be a downgrade. Foulds and Tom Bola were both cack and both a downgrade on playing Charlie Murgatroyd there. We haven't ever replaced Meredith. Mark Marshall was too hot and cold and realistically Gilliead isn't a winger. Id say Marshall was a downgrade on Kyle Reid.

 

Lee Sharpe’s days as a marauding international winger were clearly behind him when he came to us. I also think he got caught in the crossfire of a club on the decline. There’s no doubting he was a class player.
I remember a terrific away win at Barnsley where Sharpe played in central midfield and was like a tier 2 Glenn Hoddle, He hardly moved from the centre circle but absolutely ran the game. I assumed he would become a fixture there but, bizarrely, wasn’t picked there again.

 

His drop off was remarkable. I remember it like he just couldn't be bothered, but its a bit hazy haha

 

Bobby Campbell replaced by Mark Leonard.

 

Definitely. He left us in 2002 at only 31 and dropped to the bottom tier with Exeter.

Then in 2004 he signed for my hometown and then local non league team Garforth Town in the Northern Counties league.

 

Pretty sure McCall came over 12 months after the ginger God had left.

 

In Fergies autobiography, he mentions Sharpe. When he burst onto the scene he was all about raw pace, but he lost that when he did his cruciate. Fergie said that without that pace he always felt he'd be just a very a mediocre player which is pretty much how it turned out.