"Never Go Back"

Just like to get some opinions/examples of players who have gone back to a club and been better/worse than they were before.

At West Brom,it seems like we will be bringing back Zoltan Gera.First time round the bloke was top class,but he's 32 now and although on a free will probably be one of the highest earners in the squad.We've also been linked with bringing Kuzsack back,who again was top class first time around but has now spent 5 years warming United's bench.I'm quite looking forward to seeing Gera back but some of my fellow Baggies are apprehensive about his return.

At Albion,the most recent example of this is Marc Antoine Fortune who first time round,was brilliant for us but when we re-signed him from Celtic last summher he has been half the player that we originally saw.

So anyone's clubs been linked with bringing an old player back/had an old player return? And what were they like?

I remember when Owen left Real Madrid and when Owen left Newcastle Liverpool were linked with him both times, reportedly coming close to getting both times as well, I wasn't ever sure about bringing him back.

We brought back Robbie Fowler, but I always felt that was more of a way of trying to give him one last hurrah at Liverpool. He obviously was no where near the player he once was but nobody expected much from him really, and he was never our first choice striker or anything like that.

It has to be Ian Rush coming back from Juventus after a mediocre season by his standards, he wasnt quite as good as when he left but was still in the top 3 strikers in the top flight.

The reason people say never go back is because more often than not the first stint was a success so there is an unfair expectation straight from the off, look at Spurs, Keane and Defoe went back, on the whole one has been a success and one has been a failure, the failure was Keane who had Legendary status before he left, it can work IMO but only if the player wasn't top of his game the first time around

Mark Hughes (Man United -> Barcelona -> Bayern -> Man United)

Never managed to improve on his goal total in the league after he returned but he was an outstanding player.

I never meant it never happens, just very rarely, Hughes and Rush do spring to mind as successes tho'

the-gaffer wrote:The reason people say never go back is because more often than not the first stint was a success so there is an unfair expectation straight from the off, look at Spurs, Keane and Defoe went back, on the whole one has been a success and one has been a failure, the failure was Keane who had Legendary status before he left, it can work IMO but only if the player wasn't top of his game the first time around

I think the difference with Keane and Defoe at Spurs is that they both signed for another top flight English club so when they went back to Spurs the fans didnt get behind them as much as they might have done if they had returned from a foreign club like Rush and Hughes did.