Thinking about how much Macca has improved over the years (specifically in 2012) has got me thinking of which City players past and present have improved the most during their time in black and amber. The ones that immediately spring to my mind are: Billy Whitehurst: Bit of a clogger when he joined, but developed under Chillo and others into a decent player. Andy Saville: Perhaps we were spoilt by watching the likes of Edwards, Mutrie and even Flounders, but Saville never looked up to it by comparison. However, he got better and better and ended up having a long a pretty fruitful career in the lower divisions. Neil Buckley: Was only average by the end - but that was several levels above the disaster he was in his first 30-40 appearances. Neil Mann: Looked lightweight and out of his depth at first, but stuck at it and became a fan favourite and fine servant during dark days for the club. Michael Turner: Struggled to settle for most of his first season and had problems with manhandling strikers far too much, but learnt to keep his hands to himself and make the most of his aerial ability and reading of the game in front of him. Any others?
Leigh Jenkinson? He was dogga for a long while and then had a truly brilliant season before he got his move to Cov. BBB as well perhaps? Not as much as the others but he looked slow, fat and just generally ****e when he first signed. At least he lost the weight and improved massively as a player.
Chris Simpkin from the sixties, first time I saw him play he was like a fairy. Cliff Britton turned him into a hard tackling mid-fielder.
I ruled out Deano as he was good from day one when he signed as an adult, not having played for the first team in his junior stint.
Know were you're coming from, but the facts are he joined us from non league and ended up in The Prem with Bradford
Also with Hull City! What about Gary Hobson, LB/CB went to Brighton for 60k, which was a lot at the time. I thought he improved from when he started & when he left & I saw him on highlights for Brighton he looked pretty good.
Yep, Hobson improved a lot. Still not buying the Deano thing. I reckon late-91/early 92 Deano was already good enough for a lower Premier team.
I was just about to post the same thing John when I saw your post. Simpkin was atrocious, a real fairy, almost worse than Olofinjana (what happened to him?) when I first saw him. And he turned into a real hard man. Amazing transformation!! Macca and Damo are right up there though. I still think Delaney would be a great acquisition at LB...and he can score goals. But Pulis won't let him go.
Mike Edwards stands out for me. Started out ****e, then totally transformed into a quality right back.
He's at the Wendies, but he's hardly played this season(6 starts and one one sub appearance), though I don't know if he's been injured(he hasn't played at all this year).
