The Emile Heskey Appreciaton thread

Thought that title would hook all of you into this thread :-)

Throughout football there are those who appear to make a mockery of our beautiful game.

The likes of Heskey, Djemba Djemba, Palmer etc.

However, as Football Manager is set in the world of Megabytes and Pixels, and as a result every once in a while some of our useless players can defy belief and perform very well.

This thread is for us to broadcast our successes with the outcasts of football. If you have ever took a chance on a reject who came good we want to hear about it in this thread.

On my most recent save I began with Celtic, snapped up Heskey on deadline day on a season long loan. Although he was his usual self in the SPL, he finished the Europa league as top scorer with 14!!! Including a Hattrick in the last 20 minutes of the Final when we were 2-1 down to Besitkas.

Emile Heskey I salute you!

booooooooooooooooooo

I usually refer these types of threads on to the good player forum, but it doesn't seem to be appropriate in this case

He will always be England's donkey!

He will always be England's donkey!

Funny story, this isn't a story about a reject succeeding. I started one career as Manchester United, eventually I was sacked and took over Celtic. As Celtic I chose to sign Ravel Morrison from my old club United, when my business at Celtic was done, I joined Porto and then joined my favourite team Galatasaray where I once again signed Morrison. The odd thing is I never played him once . He followed me to almost every club I managed hoping for his chance and he never got it!

EDIT: Accidentally replied with quote

Signed Robbie Keane for Barcelona. He was on a Free, nearly 32. I thought, great I need a bit of cover, and I already had strikers coming in the summer.

He played nearly every game and finished top goalscorer, it was awesome.

Great story. I had a striker that was at Wellington Phoenix when I joined them I took him with me to America(MEX) and Velez in Argentina. He was a success at every club but I also took him to Real Madrid he was nowhere near their level but due to the players around him he scored 7 in14 league games. I also capped him three times for Brazil but he didn't score before I was sacked. Then he went to be my assistant manager and play for me at Seattle as well.

I signed a reject from St. Etienne on a free, a newgen striker named Yatouma Kante, for my Reading squad that was just promoted to the Premier League. He was a bit of a nomadic striker, never really settling in new place. A season or two at France, and then a stint at Juve, a few loan spells in Switzerland, and back to France. His attributes were pretty good but he just never played a lot but I thought 'what the heck' and signed him anyways. He helped me stay in the Premier League the first season and scored 30 goals in his second season, breaking (then) the most goals in a season record at the club and we finished 4th! He now has over 200 appearances at the club and scored 115 goals (and counting).

Unfortunately, I now have better targets and he's getting up there in age but I partly owe my success now to him and happy that I revived his career and gave him an opportunity.

On an older FM I brought in Fernando Correa to Rangers.. he was like 32 years old or something like that.. He went on to score 20+ leaugue each year until he retired at 38/39-ish.. He alone lifted the whole team up and above the rest of scotland and also gave me huge succes in europe, where I made it to the semi finals twice in CL. He was a beast! - I believe I bought him from Atl. Madrid..

had my pic taken with him at the airport

The likes of Heskey, Djemba Djemba, Palmer etc.

Putting Heskey in the same bracket as Eric Djemba Djemba and Carlton Palmer simply isn't fair.

Heskey has had a very solid career. Yes he has not being anything special or a great goalscorer, but he has always tried his best and done whatever job has been asked of him by his manager.

Ask a few strikers who have played with him, (namely Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney), and they will say they greatly appreciate what Heskey did.

On an older FM I brought in Fernando Correa to Rangers.. he was like 32 years old or something like that.. He went on to score 20+ leaugue each year until he retired at 38/39-ish.. He alone lifted the whole team up and above the rest of scotland and also gave me huge succes in europe, where I made it to the semi finals twice in CL. He was a beast! - I believe I bought him from Atl. Madrid.. - dont remember.. a long time ago

Great story. I had a striker that was at Wellington Phoenix when I joined them I took him with me to America(MEX) and Velez in Argentina. He was a success at every club but I also took him to Real Madrid he was nowhere near their level but due to the players around him he scored 7 in14 league games. I also capped him three times for Brazil but he didn't score before I was sacked. Then he went to be my assistant manager and play for me at Seattle as well.

Any names, I'm very interested in the A-League.

I remember when I had arturo lupoli as a succesful premier league striker on fm08, then I saw him play for norwich and he was rubbish

Any names, I'm very interested in the A-League.

It was FM10 and the player was a Brazilian called Wisner you have to load all Brazilian players to get him in the game, he has random attributes though so can be good or bad I just got lucky.

Putting Heskey in the same bracket as Eric Djemba Djemba and Carlton Palmer simply isn't fair.

Heskey has had a very solid career. Yes he has not being anything special or a great goalscorer, but he has always tried his best and done whatever job has been asked of him by his manager.

Ask a few strikers who have played with him, (namely Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney), and they will say they greatly appreciate what Heskey did.

You're selling him short there, too. He's scored over 110 goals in the Premier League, more than the likes of Le Tissier and Yakubu. Yeah, he's not an amazing goalscorer, but he's far from a total reject or just a workhorse who helps his team mates, he has had a fine career.

Well said, SCIAG. Heskey's no Edin Dzeko, but he's had a career he can be proud of and his goalscoring record at club level is not as shoddy as some seem to think.

I signed Heskey in CM 97/98 for Newcastle, he did alright for me!

Also remember signing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_Vasilyuk Vasilyuk, I needed a 4th striker in CM 01/02, I think I was Man Utd, so obviously going for titles and all my scouts pretty much said he would be a waste of money (got interested as he scored a couple against me) anyway I took the 10mil punt or so and he was fantastic, scored plenty of goals, like Solskjaer. tbf looking at his wiki he has a good scoring record.

In the old CM days when being a lower clubs I used to love signing the U21 English players on free transfers and many would turn good.

On FM07, I signed was managing England. Through qualification for Euro 2008, my strikers had been Owen, Beattie, Crouch and Defoe (Rooney was permanently suspended). When the tournament itself rolled around, Defoe and Crouch were injured, Beattie had a yellow injury, and Owen picked up an injury after I picked him and had to be replaced, leaving me with a strike force of Heskey, Darren Bent, an injured Beattie, and Leroy Lita. Bent was in awful form, so in my first match I picked Lita and Heskey as my strikers. The partnership was big man-little man working to perfection. I remember France being camped in the final third until Terry nicked the ball from Trezeguet, hit a high ball to Heskey, who flicked it on for Lita to run through at Coupet and score.

In the final against Italy, they combined well again, Heskey cushioning a deep cross from Downing for Lita to hit home. We ended up losing on penalties after conceding late equalisers at the end of 90 minutes and extra time, but the strike force had done their job.

In real life, Leroy Lita is a journeyman striker and Emile Heskey has always been let down by his team mates