[Archived] Vince Grella Signs

[tcj_jones]

When seeing my guy about my back / hamstring injuries, he mentioned about a Premier League footballer he was currently dealing with who had similar problems to me and who actually had to go about his footballing career on a day by day basis, missing trainings here and there and having to wait until the weekend just to see whether he were fit enough to play. It was a problem that never went away, that would keep flarring up and that would come see him on the sidelines again if he took a heavy knock.

First person I thought of was Bellamy, second Dunn. I really wanted him to tell me, but he wouldn't.

[Dunnfc]

Ledley King or is he knee?

[roversmum]

  Inta Beaver said:

How many games do you think these boys will play this season? Full 90mins in the league!

Grella-10

Dunn-12

Reid-7

I might see what odds I can get for these at bet365

Games???? Minutes would be a better bet...

[LeChuck]

  neekoy said:

Grella will come good, he has a better pass then anyone we currently have in the squad and we will see his stuff.

I've never seen him do anything other than safe 5-yard sideways passing. He's half decent at breaking up the play, but he's so slow he can't usually get to a position to do it.

Barely an upgrade on Mokoena for me, not impressed at all, even when he is fit.

[G Somerset Rover]

  neekoy said:

Grella will come good, he has a better pass then anyone we currently have in the squad and we will see his stuff.

Nice to see that Vince has taken his time to post on the board.

[Jonnolad]

  neekoy said:

Reid is extremely overrated by this board in a similar way Jansen and Derbyshire were, even in his peak form for the club he was above average, Man Utd might have asked the question but United were also at the time looking at Roy Keane replacements, the fact they chose Alan Smith out of position over a bid for Reid says enough for me.

Grella will come good, he has a better pass then anyone we currently have in the squad and we will see his stuff.

Then why didn't he show it last year? It's not like he only played one or two games - he made 15 starts for us last season and in only 2 or 3 of those did I think he looked anything like half decent, and even then he wasn't winning games for us like Tugay did in the past or even Reid before he got injured. For the other 12-13 games, I thought my god why have we paid a penny for him. In the Everton game for instance he literally couldn't pass to one of our own players - be it a 5 or a 40 yard pass. As for his defending - remember the Man City game away - his last man defending consisted of standing to one side and waving his arms in the air! Alan Hansen even made a special slot for it on match of the day to single it out as truly diabolical play.

I sincerely hope he comes good (at the very least so we can recoup some cash), but the truth of the matter might be that he just can't cut it in the premier league - because his performances so far for us certainly suggested that.

Personally for £4m I'd expect someone to hit the ground running, not have to wait for them to "come good" though. We really don't have that luxury - waiting for someone to come good is something you'd expect to do for sub £1m signings or youngsters coming through the ranks, not £4m 29 year old internationals.

[LeChuck]

What hurts even more is that Lee Cattermole moved to Wigan for £3.5 million in the same transfer window. He has everything we need right now, I think Sunderland were bidding near £10 million for him this window.

[LeftWinger]

  neekoy said:

Reid is extremely overrated by this board in a similar way Jansen and Derbyshire were

How dare you!

[Miker]

  The1mattjansen said:

Jansen was a fantastic player and that was widely acknowledged within the English game. Hence the fact that he was all but on the plane to the world cup.

Derbyshire was a local lad, im not sure anyone though he was a world beater, but we all had an extra passion for him to do well and he has a great ability to put the ball in the net.

Grella, has proved nothing.

Grella was part of the FIFA World Cup Team of the Tournament. He was the youngest football player in Australia to enter the Australian Institute of Sport, at 14 years old, where they train pretty much 7 hours every day. He's been fit and injury-free for much of his career in the Italian first division where he's played since 17 years of age.

I think that's enough to say that he's proved "something". He's only had 1 season with us so far, give him a break, he hasn't had a chance to show his stuff yet. Just because he played 15 games in no way means he was fit enough to perform well. Anyone who's tried to play a game after a fairly bad injury will tell you that, it's not easy to get straight back into it. Why do you think players like Rosicky and Hargreaves keep getting injured as well? You think you're ok and you can play, but then you go and suffer the same setback again.

Don't forget Grella also got the man of the match award in his first Home game for us, and to be fair, after the first 5 or 6 matches under Sam I thought our football was absolutely shocking. So I don't understand how anyone can say Grella is worthless without saying the rest of the team is exactly the same.

[Russ]

  Jonnolad said:

Then why didn't he show it last year? It's not like he only played one or two games - he made 15 starts for us last season and in only 2 or 3 of those did I think he looked anything like half decent, and even then he wasn't winning games for us like Tugay did in the past or even Reid before he got injured. For the other 12-13 games, I thought my god why have we paid a penny for him. In the Everton game for instance he literally couldn't pass to one of our own players - be it a 5 or a 40 yard pass. As for his defending - remember the Man City game away - his last man defending consisted of standing to one side and waving his arms in the air! Alan Hansen even made a special slot for it on match of the day to single it out as truly diabolical play.

I sincerely hope he comes good (at the very least so we can recoup some cash), but the truth of the matter might be that he just can't cut it in the premier league - because his performances so far for us certainly suggested that.

Personally for £4m I'd expect someone to hit the ground running, not have to wait for them to "come good" though. We really don't have that luxury - waiting for someone to come good is something you'd expect to do for sub £1m signings or youngsters coming through the ranks, not £4m 29 year old internationals.

At least we got more than 20 seconds on MOTD that week

[onlyoneDuff]

Grella has been absolutely shocking whenever he's actually been fit enough to get on the pitch...always a step too slow and I've never seen evidence of his superior passing ability...the fact that he plays for the Aussies and played for near relegated Italian sides doesn't mean he will suddenly come good...his proper lever seems to be the A-league and I would get rid just to get his wages off the bill...an expensive Paul Ince mistake

[ada2020]

  neekoy said:

Reid is extremely overrated by this board in a similar way Jansen and Derbyshire were,

What??????

Never seen such a terrible suggestion in my life, Jansen was absolute quality make no mistake of that, did you post that to get this kind of reaction?

Even Derbyshire gave his all, Grella is w@nk make no doubt of that.

[Blue blood]

I think it's very hard to judge Grella's level due to his injuries. He's shown the odd sign of promise but he's always injured or coming back from an injury so not in best form. This makes it very hard to judge.

However his ability will be immaterial if his fitness continues in this vein - he'll never play enough for us to find out, and it's still effectively 4 million wasted.

[AggyBlue]

  Blue blood said:

I think it's very hard to judge Grella's level due to his injuries. He's shown the odd sign of promise but he's always injured or coming back from an injury so not in best form. This makes it very hard to judge.

However his ability will be immaterial if his fitness continues in this vein - he'll never play enough for us to find out, and it's still effectively 4 million wasted.

We keep reading he's picked up a little niggle.

Can someone explain what a niggle is and if it's in his legs or his head?

[steven]

He will come good. As someone who has watched him over the last 10 years (rather than 10 months like most of this board) I know what he's capable. He will come good.

[neekoy]

  The1mattjansen said:

Jansen was a fantastic player and that was widely acknowledged within the English game. Hence the fact that he was all but on the plane to the world cup.

Derbyshire was a local lad, im not sure anyone though he was a world beater, but we all had an extra passion for him to do well and he has a great ability to put the ball in the net.

Grella, has proved nothing.

C'mon, I didn't say he wasn't a good player I just said he was overrated by this board.

So if representing england is the bar for greatness how do you explain Chris Powell, Carlton Palmer or Micheal Ricketts?

Grella has had one injury ravaged year, for some reason he has a tough year and everyone wants get rid whilst Reid hasn;t played a consistently for about 3 years and we keep giving him the time.

If Grella can get fit and play some games you will see why they paid 4 million for him.

[Miker]

  AggyBlue said:

We keep reading he's picked up a little niggle.

Can someone explain what a niggle is and if it's in his legs or his head?

When I picked up a serious injury to both my calf muscles I wasn't able to play for my local club for a while, once I was ready to play again, every single time I felt a pull in one of my calves it got me ###### scared because I didn't want to make a wrong turn with my legs and suffer the same injury again. At some point I did suffer that injury again, not long after I started playing again, simply because I rushed into it. It would be the same with Grella and anyone else that suffers from an injury, it's a mental as well as a physical thing.

I did manage to play a full match during this time and as a result was able to score 2 goals, and create 1 and was praised by my teammates and manager for my spot on crosses and passing that game. However, every other game after that I struggled with my fitness problem and was barely able to play a single half. It was a combination of an ongoing physical problem, as well as insufficient cardio training to get back into shape. So if Grella is doing appropriate cardio training, like the rest of our injured players, I don't see a reason why they won't be able to come back fit and at full strength. It's only a worry if it's a more complex or serious problem, which may be the case for Reid, but not so sure about Grella... time will tell.

Getting injured is the most depressing thing that can happen for a football player, don't think that they're just happy to sit around and get paid for doing nothing, I'm sure they don't mind it, but they got into football because they love it, not because it will give them a fat paycheck at the end of the week.

[Amo]

I hope the Grella supporters have a genuine claim and aren't showing misplaced patriotism. So far he's shown us little value for money and can barely keep himself fit. There is little reason to be confident.

[Nate]

Poor guy has just been robbed!

Grella Robbed

[KoNG]

Just saw this too Nate.

i hope they catch these Key Hunts soon......

[sloth_frattelli]

Shocking. Hope the guy and his family are ok.

These people who think they can do things like this need put down.

[leftfooter]

  Nate said:

Poor guy has just been robbed!

Grella Robbed

As the article mentions, this is just one episode in a series of similar shocking incidents involving Premier League 'football aces' like Tony Hibbert throughout the north west.

Coincidentally, this is the second occasion within a year that Grella has been involved in such a heinous event. Last August he was discovered lurking suspiciously in the vicinity of Brockhall after £4 million was handed over to muggers with heavy Italian accents in broad day light.

The robbers were last seen with their swag, laughing hysterically at Manchester airport as they boarded a plane bound for Torino.

[Hughesy]

  Nate said:

Poor guy has just been robbed!

Grella Robbed

1st RSC, now Grella.

Glad his family were not there! Maybe it will of woken him up and turn him into a nutcase on the pitch?! Well we can all hope!!

[Sparky Marky]

  leftfooter said:

As the article mentions, this is just one episode in a series of similar shocking incidents involving Premier League 'football aces' like Tony Hibbert throughout the north west.

Coincidentally, this is the second occasion within a year that Grella has been involved in such a heinous event. Last August he was discovered lurking suspiciously in the vicinity of Brockhall after £4 million was handed over to muggers with heavy Italian accents in broad day light.

The robbers were last seen with their swag, laughing hysterically at Manchester airport as they boarded a plane bound for Torino.

[LeChuck]

God help those thieves if they try and rob Salgado.