Who are the players you most regret letting go of or thought we let go of too soon in the last few years? Let's keep it within the bounds between the 2011-2012 season until now. Danny Simpson - why oh why did we let a perfectly decent player go when we had no other right back in the squad (and haven't had since). This is perhaps the silliest one so far. Heider Helguson - quite possibly our best player in our first season in the EPL after promotion. He absolutely bossed some of the most expensive defences in the league. He had at least another season in him. We severely lacked a goalscorer in the season after he left. Mackie - I'm fully aware of his flaws but he was one of our top scorers in that EPL season, even though he had a significant injury and time out. He always scared defences with his running and no giving up attitude. If we had no one better to replace him with, why did we send him packing? Bradley Orr and Gorkss - why send them packing without giving them a chance and not finding people who are definitely better? They both had some success after leaving us. Again, I'm not saying they're top top players but why get rid if we don't replace with better? At least they played hard for the team. Tommy Smith - again, same as above. Not amazing but a great worker who seemed to have a knack of being in the right place at right time. Why send packing when we don't replace? I'm not counting Remy because we didn't send him packing. He left us at the last minute. I'll add more as I think of them. And to think.... we've kept SWP all this time!
I was thinking about Mackie again at the weekend - I think he scored again for the Royals. Funny how it didn't work out for him at Forest as, despite his well documented limitations, I'm not convinced we've had better in that position since we sold him. Like you said, he popped up with a few important goals, plus I liked the fact that he never stopped running. I don't think you could ever say Jamie Mackie wasn't a trier for us. One I'd add to your list is Ryan Nelsen. Yeah, I know he wanted to go to manage in Canadian, but I think the team was playing quite well leading up to his departure, then he was replaced by Samba and the rest is, as they say, double home economics....no, sorry, history.
Loic Remy should of offered him more money and made him see he wouldn't play at Chelsea a waste of a brilliant talent swallowed by the scum just because they can Maybe the difference as he would of scored goals
