Michael Hector - March 2025: signed for Dagenham and Redbridge til end of season (p31)

charltonbob said:

Didn't Hector give up playing for a year or so to look after his seriously ill Father ? 

Some might say he gave up playing frequently, while still at Charlton.

LargeAddick said:

Braziliance said:

NabySarr said:

Braziliance said:

sam3110 said:

Braziliance said:

Michael Hector at 33 years old, baller league draft 

https://x.com/BallerLeagueUK/status/1975201554664960353?t=LaUtwxJ7oS6NPzY7mujB-g&s=19

Carl Piergianni at 33 years old, captain of a table topping League 1 side and putting up consistent numbers, again 

Hector


Piergianni 

Irrelevant. That was then, this is recent/present.

I called he was better than every centre back we had at the time, and it was ridiculed, repeatedly. 

There isn't a single centre back we had on our books at the time playing at a higher level now, they can't even get League 2 contracts. 

Piergianni might be a Championship player next year, and even if he isn't, it is beyond doubt he is a top League 1 centre back, like I said at the time.

Tbf we had Lloyd Jones so in hindsight ridicule was correct. Not sure if we also had Gillesphey at the time but he’s also proven to be a much better all-round player than Piergianni. 

Piergianni has certain strengths that work if he plays for a certain style team. He would have been a poor signing for us but he’s great for Stevenage 

I have never said he is better than Lloyd, said multiple times he is our best centre back since the Prem. 

Piergianni is just a very good centre back, amazing people can't admit it when all the proof is there for them.

Sorry but if he was a very good centre back he wouldn’t still be at Stevenage. 

His age has gone against him. 

If he was at his level of the last 3 years and in his 20s, someone would have gone for him. 

We went for Sam Lavelle and he's honestly about 100x better than Lavelle.

Same reason as to why we will likely keep Lloydy when he is good enough to be in a Championship promotion side/play for a bigger club.

You could even apply your logic to Josh Edwards or Kayne Ramsay, how were they playing Scottish div2 and English level 4 when they were Championship ready. If they were in their 30s, it is unlikely we would have signed them. 

Certain players peak when they get older is all

MarcusH26 said:

Lavelle was a last minute deadline day signing because our main target Jason Kerr went to Wigan when they were throwing cash around under the Bahraini owners they had. Think he was purely who was available at the time and in budget, was probably earmarked at the time as the replacement for JP. 

I remember Lavelle talking about this in an article. We were already in the middle of signing him when we heard Kerr was available, and so asked Sam to wait in his SE London hotel while we tried to pursue someone better! When we couldn't get Kerr, we went back to Lavelle. He said he was sitting and waiting to see if we still wanted him. I remember reading that and thinking crikey, what a brutal business.