A falling from grace

[Nic83]

Maybe "a falling from grace" was an over elaborate title, but then I'm known for doing this! I'm on about footballers who's individual ability took a nose dive for one reason or another.Nothing to do with teams or ****ing medals. Djimi ****ing Traore won a CL medal ffs! But anyone with a brain who read my post would have grasped this and responded reasonably or not at all. Instead I get this fool.

[Nic83]

And now the thread is a complete disaster before it even got going.

[DannyMan2006]

You've obviously been taking lessons at the DJS school of moderating; insult any that disagrees with you, delete their posts then try and get them banned.

How did he become a poorer player at Madrid? He was worshipped there by his teammates, the fans and the president. He came back to England the wrong side of 30 and was replaced by the same player that now plays for England on the right wing. If you cant see how thats not a fall from grace you're blind as well as thick.

Sorry Nic, I get the point of your thread, but you are dead wrong with regards to Macca. MOTM in a champions League final FFS!

When Macca left Real, he did lose the will to play on though, so that was a bit of a fall from grace, but many players suffer this when they can no longer cut it at the peak of the game. Macca also got fed up with the injuries.

[DannyMan2006]

And now the thread is a complete disaster before it even got going.

I'll start you of.

Des Walker.

Immense. Moved to Juventus. Returned to England.

Nowhere near his previous levels.

[Larakin15]

Michael Owen

[Shaggy]

I'll start you of.

Des Walker.

Immense. Moved to Juventus. Returned to England.

Nowhere near his previous levels.

Sampdoria wasn't it? Definitely wasn't Juve.

[Imy]

Sampdoria wasn't it? Definitely wasn't Juve.

It was Sampdoria and if i remember (back in the days of Italian Football on C4) he did ok

[tsb]

Heskey and Collymore are ones that spring to mind. To a degree, Fowler - he was never the same after that injury.

[cobain]

Hm ... Michael Owen springs to mind. Fantastic at Liverpool, no chances at Real Madrid, crap now at Newcastle. Oh and Stan Collymore.

Also, Marco Di Vaio. Once a very promising Juve forward, now plays for ... I don't know who ... And he's not that good as well ...

[Nic83]

Or on the subject of Juve, how about David Trezeguet. The year he scored at Celtic park for Juve, I thought he was going to become a world beater. He's had a lot of injury problems but even when he's been playing he hasn't recaptured any of his form.

Or anyone remember Diego Tristan when Depor were in their hayday. He looked brilliant fro 2 or 3 seasons. I think he scored 2 at OT and depor won or maybe lost 3-2 there in a fantastic match. Depor and himself have now gone down the toilet.

[carheex]

Or on the subject of Juve, how about David Trezeguet. The year he scored at Celtic park for Juve, I thought he was going to become a world beater. He's had a lot of injury problems but even when he's been playing he hasn't recaptured any of his form.

50+ goals in his last 80 games. If only we had a striker that "poor".

[Nic83]

Yeah the Italian Seria B is tough going where he got a large % of those goals. I take it according to you, he's still the player he once was?

Agreed, I'd still love him here though. But then again, I'd have Dave Benson Phillips over Kuyt or Voronin. He's having a good season in Seria A this year, hope he's recapturing some form of old..but I doubt he'll ever be the same. Getting on now

[BFG]

A thread instigated from another horrendous performance by one Harry not so Kewell tonight, who besides him, for one reason or another went from superstar to well....not so superstar?

I'm looking for players who at one stage looked like they could have the footballing world at their feet, to average players.

Steve macmanaman springs to mind. When he went to Real, he tried to become another player, a player he just wasn't. He tried to make himself some sort of midfield passing maestro and stopped doing what he was good at - running at defenders.

Another, it pains me to say is Damien Duff, Chelsea ruined him. I think when he went there, he was surrounded by such talent that he felt he didn't need to ''do it all'' himself anymore and rather than go at and rip defenders apart like he did for blackburn and Ireland and maybe his first season at the bridge, he started passing too often and well, lost it a bit. Hope for him though, I expect Keegan may reignite his spark at the Toon.

Then there's Big Ron. The best player I've EVER seen in the flesh.

All the players you've listed suffered horrendous injuries before they 'fell from grace.'

Not the easiest thing to be like **** off a stick going past defenders when you've had major surjery mate and I think their downfalls were largely due to that.