Who wants to learn Italian anyway ?

Over the last forty years, Villa have probably attracted more transfer interest from Italy than any other English club. With Italian football very much in vogue at the moment, they can be proud of this fact. The man who set the trend was Gerry Hitchens. While other early sixties exports such as Dennis Law and Jimmy Greaves soon returned to these shores, Hitchens stayed is Italy for eight years, playing for Inter,Torino, Atalanta and Cagliari. With the possible exception of John Charles, no other British player has made such an impression on the land of the lira. He played in an era when Italian clubs were, as they are now, dominant in Europe. It seems strange that his England career should have ended so soon after arriving in Serie A.

The next Villa player to attract strong interest from Italy was Gordon Cowans. After an outstanding display against them in the European Cup, Juventus were rumoured to be interested in signing him in 1983, and he was then all set to sign for Napoli until a club takeover resulted in them turning their attentions to unknown Argentinian Diego Maradona. Cowans would later join Bari in a combined £850,000 transfer with Paul Rideout and I believe that this deal marked the beginning of the end for Graham Turner as Villa manager. With Cowans still getting over an horrific broken leg and Rideout showing considerable promise as Peter Withe's long-term replacement, both players should have been cornerstones of the team for years to come. Not that they derived much from their move to southern Italy, Bari were relegated in their first season and both players had to play out the remaining two years of their contracts in Serie B.

David Platt would later avoid a similar fate by having a get out clause inserted in his contract when he joined the same club in 1991. Griven Bari's humble status, it was inevitable that he would be invoking this clause at some stage. But why did he join them in the first place? Leaving the 1982 European Cup winners for a club that had never qualified for Europe tends to indicate that the reasons were not football ones. However, Platt could claim that it helped him secure a dream move to Juventus. Unfortunately, this turned into something of a nightmare when he was frequently overlooked in favour of Andreas Moller, the man whose decisive penalty in the semi-final of Euro 96 helped Gareth Southgate secure his lucrative Pizza Hut contract.

After missing out on selection for both legs of the 1993 UEFA Cup Final, Platt decided to cut his losses and leave Juventus for Sampdoria. Although he played four seasons in Italy, winning the Italian Cup in 1994, I believe the move abroad destroyed Platt as a player. For someone whose principal asset is goal scoring, playing him as a holding player in midfield was nonsensical. Ale never had the creativity nor the tackling ability to play there in the first place. I wish he would come clean and say he only went there for the money. Because if you had been totally honest in your autobiography, Mr Platt, Graham Taylor did far more to improve your ability as a footballer than playing against the likes of Gullit, Baggio and Baresi on a regular basis. Platt left the Villa as one of the best goalscoring midfielders in Europe. He returned to sign for Arsenal as a player who would struggle to hold down a place in our current team. The reverse is true, though, for Paul Elliott. Leaving Villa Park for Pisa a matter of weeks after Taylor's appointment as Villa boss in May 1987, he would earn rave reviews for his defensive work in Serie A. For an English defender to succeed in the league where defence is king is virtually unknown. You only have to look at the failure of Des Walker at Sampdoria to appreciate this, The latest Villa player to move to Italy is, somewhat surprisingly, Franz Carr. After scoring the goal which broke the thirty six year FA Cup quarter-final hoodoo, he should go with the sincerest good wishes of every Villa fan. We all thought Savo Milosevic would be joining him in Serie A. But, as with Tony Daley's proposed move to Udinese in November 1993, the deal collapsed at the last minute. His dealings with Perugia appear to have taught Savo that playing for Aston Villa is not such a bad thing after all. Love him or loathe him, you cannot deny that Villa look far better with Savo in the team. I do not think it a mere coincidence that the dramatic improvement in the team's results should coincide with his return to the side and the shock defeats against Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland and Leicester occurred when he was unavailable for selection. One should not forget that he only missed two matches throughout the whole of last season. By staying with Villa, I am sure he can achieve all that he wants in football. He almost fell into the classic trap of joining the first Italian club to show a firm interest, almost as Platt had done. With the exception of the Milan clubs, Juventus and possibly Parma or Sampdoria, I cannot see why a player with a top English player should want to go to Italy. If Gordon Cowans had joined one of these clubs, I am sure that he would have become a world star. It is noticeable that the most successful British exports to Italy, such as Charles, Hitchens, Liam Brady and Ray Wilkins, joined either Milan, Inter or Juventus.

The financial reward to be derived from playing in Italy are being eroded by the vast influx of money into the Premiership. Unless they get a ridiculous offer for a player, as they did for Platt, Villa should never again be easy prey for any old Italian club that brandishes a fistful of lira.

Andy Wainwright