Ross McCormack has to go down as one of Aston Villa’s worst ever signings.
Secured for a £12m fee in 2016 – it would be £13.1m now, per The Bank of England’s inflation calculator – he was the player who was meant to help Villa finally break out of the Championship and into the Premier League.
At the time, manager Roberto Di Matteo said: “He is a player whose goalscoring record has been excellent everywhere he has been and we feel he can be an important addition.”
It didn’t go to plan.
Di Matteo is right in one respect, in the sense that McCormack had scored a hatful while at Fulham; he had 42 goals and 22 assists to his name in 100 appearances. That isn’t too shabby at all.
However, in 16-17, he made 20 Championship appearances and netted just three goals as Villa finished 13th. Di Matteo only lasted until October, when Steve Bruce replaced him.
Red Herring or Real Hero: Only hardcore Villa fans will get all of them right….
Indeed, in total, McCormack, a Scotland international with 13 caps, made 24 appearances for Villa and those three strikes were his only goals for the club.
If we use the £13.1m fee, it means that he cost Villa £4.36m-per-goal.
Because no other outfit were seemingly willing to take him on a permanent basis, he was eventually released at the end of the 2018/19 season.
Prior to that, he had gone on loan to Nottingham Forest, Melbourne City, Central Coast Mariners, and Motherwell in Scotland.
In total, across those four spells, he scored 24 goals, which sounds impressive, until you factor in that he played 78 games in that time, and also consider that 14 of those came for Melbourne. That means he has 10 goals across the other three clubs, which, really, sounds about right.
Those stats continue to shame Villa, who paid through the nose for a striker who simply couldn’t score goals, then got rid of him and subsequently managed to find their way, eventually, into the Premier League.
He has to go down in history as one of Villa’s worst-ever signings.
Meanwhile, Villa could have found their Jack Grealish replacement!