Footballers you honestly felt gutted for

Dansk

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Darren Fletcher. Career largely ruined, not even by injuries sustained while playing football but by a disease.
 

Buckie

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Abou Diaby. Injuries ruined his career.
 

Wilt

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Feel sorry for the great and talented footballers of yesteryear who were paid relatively pittance compared to the footballers of today.

They must feel absolutely gutted when they hear of the ridiculous pay scales of today‘s less talented, even mediocre players.

Doubt very much any of today’s top league footballers will ever have to sell their medals.
 

Grylte

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What's up with the "feels" again?
 

Lentwood

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Phil Jones is a good shout. People ridicule SAF for his comment about Jones being one of the most naturally talented footballers he had seen but who knows where Jones would be without the injuries?

Some footballers get one or two bad injuries and it ends them. Jones has barely strung together 15 games his entire career and yet still, when he is fit and does play, you can see what natural talent he has
 

berbasloth4

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Sorry to bump but liked the discussion.

Dean Ashton. I thought he was a shoe in to play for united but for injury.

Wes brown could have been world class and a England first choice but for the fitness issues.

Gazza best merson basically all same reason.

Heinze was amazing first season for us gets bad injury we get evra and that was basically that.

Alan Smith, being nurtured to take Keanes role Keane leaves suddenly then the bad injury.

Ched Evans lost majority of his career over lies.

Oh and my cousin Steven hunt relegated three times
 

HTG

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I get your point, almost mentioned him myself. But I’m not actually gutted for Deisler. I’m happy for him. He was in a tough spot and figured out the best way going forward for him. He made a difficult decision for his health and it seems to have worked out very well. He seems to have found his luck somewhere else.
 

The Boy

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I think what happened to Enock Mwepu this season was awful, literally just hitting the prime of his career and captaining his country and he's forced to retire with a totally unexpected and previously undiagnosed heart defect. It must be absolutely gutting.
 

Rhyme Animal

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Nonchalantly scoring the winner...
I think what happened to Enock Mwepu this season was awful, literally just hitting the prime of his career and captaining his country and he's forced to retire with a totally unexpected and previously undiagnosed heart defect. It must be absolutely gutting.
Completely agree. I didn’t feel it got the coverage it deserved actually.

He seemed to take it very graciously as well with a lot of class. Would love to see him become a top coach… he’s a great midfielder with an EXCELLENT read of the game.
 

The Boy

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Completely agree. I didn’t feel it got the coverage it deserved actually.

He seemed to take it very graciously as well with a lot of class. Would love to see him become a top coach… he’s a great midfielder with an EXCELLENT read of the game.
Absolutely terrible for him and a huge loss for us at Brighton.
 

Cascarino

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I think what happened to Enock Mwepu this season was awful, literally just hitting the prime of his career and captaining his country and he's forced to retire with a totally unexpected and previously undiagnosed heart defect. It must be absolutely gutting.
Started work at 4.30 am today after no sleep, and read it as Elon Musk at first and I thought you were making a very weird anology/joke

But yeah my lack of reading comprehension aside it’s an awful awful situation. I hope he managed to find a new role within the game if it’s what he wants
 

Rhyme Animal

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Nonchalantly scoring the winner...
Absolutely terrible for him and a huge loss for us at Brighton.
Yeah, you’ve had a lot of adversity this season as a club - Mwepu, Cucurella, Potter and the back room and I have to say, it’s amazing how you guys are doing especially considering that. It’s incredible actually.

But yeah, really hope Mwepu stays in the game.
 

André Dominguez

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Emannuel Amuneke: pacey and livewire winger, with tons of talent on his feet. Unfortunatelly a heart condition and several knee surgeries tampered his career.

Paulo Futre: yes, he had a very solid career and is considered by many one of the GOAT wingers in this sport, but his career was terrible tampered by several knee surgeries. I think he had done 4 or 5 of them before he was 24/25.

Sports medicine advanced a lot sine then, but also the refs are much less lenient on leg breaking tackles than they were back in the 80's and early 90's.
 

elmo

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AKA: Slapanut Goat Smuggla
Injuries: Jones, Bailly, Ramsey, Shaw, Eduardo, etc. no one else comes to mind right now but there's surely a lot of them

Had the talent to become a world beater: Pogba, Januzaj, Martial, Morrison, Bailly, Wilshere

Maguire for being a scapegoat of our season and receiving more abuse than I've ever seen a footballer receive and being memed to a point where people genuinely think he's a Sunday League player whilst he would be the best defender at any club in the PL except Pool and City.

Managers: Ole, same as Maguire basically, a very decent manager, the one who started our rebuild and did almost everything right until the emotional decision to bring back Ronaldo. He's 10 times the manager people like Rangnick or Lampard will ever be, but once social media decides on a narrative, it won't change. Same as Arteta, a very good manager labelled "lego Pep" here...
:lol:

Can’t believe people still believe he was good for us. He effectively wasted 2 years on our rebuild and our players were stagnant and worsened their fitness under him. He should have never been given the job full time especially when we saw the late collapse in his interim season and still offered him the job full time despite knowing that he has no game plan beyond play your best players and hope for the best.
 

Dirty Schwein

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Good answer! A lot of people don’t know about his injury problems
Yeah it's sad isn't it? One minute an FPL darling and looked like he will springboard into a top club and the next minute it all comes to an end. It's even sadder for me when you see players try to hang on and play wherever they can because it's what they love and most likely all they know.
 

Chief123

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It's a toss up between two types of players:

1. Players who burst into the scene and then have their careers ruined by injuries early on only to never recover.
2. Academy players with no Plan B who don't make it and then get discarded like trash.
Is that you Micah?
 

Scottynaldinho

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Nani, the way he left the club. Got booed a couple of times during his final appearances for the club.
 

kidbob

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Luis Saha had the talent to be up there with the best PL strikers ever I believe. Michael Owen too is another big talent ultimately held back by injury.
 

Dirty Schwein

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Harry Kane. Thought he was gonna go to City and end his career with at least one trophy... But instead he will have to put his old football boots on the mantle piece in his home.
 

RedDevilMachine

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Feel sad for Sergio Aguero's heart attack and retirement. Even though he was responsible for one of our biggest heartbreak, he didn't deserve to leave the game like this with such a glittering career at City. Always a class act, one of the all time great strikers in modern PL era and Argentina. Deserves to play another World Cup.
 

The Cat

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Was always gutted for Lee Sharpe he was never the same after his illness and was one of my favourite players to watch.
 

KeanoMagicHat

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Steven Reid, Ireland could have qualified for the World Cup and he could have been in midfield for years only for injuries. Also could have played a higher level than Blackburn I reckon, very good player.
 

Revaulx

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Here’s a left-field one, considering how successful his career was: Ray Wilkins.

Because of the way his United career panned out, people quickly forgot how good he was in his first season (79/80) when we were two points off winning the league. We totally controlled the majority of games with him as deep lying playmaker.

He was injured for virtually the whole of his second season and was never quite the same player thereafter; he seemed to lose confidence and became a lot more cautious in his play.
 

El Zoido

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Ole for sure. Not an elite manager, but definitely didn’t deserve the “PE teacher” reputation.
 

Dancfc

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Harry Kane. Thought he was gonna go to City and end his career with at least one trophy... But instead he will have to put his old football boots on the mantle piece in his home.
That's his own fault. He chose to sign a big new deal knowing what Levy was like.
 

Rodgerzzz

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Ole for sure. Not an elite manager, but definitely didn’t deserve the “PE teacher” reputation.
A lot of people would probably screw their noses up at Ole but it's hard to deny that it is gutting it didn't work out for him as Utd manager, what a story that could've been.

Seen Dean Ashton mentioned a few of times. I remember watching him play at Crewe with Rob Hulse before they both got moves to bigger clubs. There was a season (01/02 maybe?) where we took Everton to a replay in the FA Cup 5th Round and Deano scored the opener, it's a real shame he wasn't afforded the opportunity to make the most of his talent.
 

Bepi

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Without trying too hard… Mario Gotze, a potential career at the top ruined by metabolic problems.
 

OverratedOpinion

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Ronaldo, imagine going from being the best player in the world to being the 3rd best striker in a team that still needs a striker.
 

colombianmancunian

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Benzema. Missing many triumphs with his NT due to Valbuena’s affair, then finally getting into the team for a WC and missing it due to injury.