Sasa Curcic - Midfielder
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Sasa Curcic joined Aston Villa from Bolton Wanderers on a record transfer fee (for Villa) of £4 million. Curcic used to be Savo Milosevic's best mate, back when they both played for Partizan Belgrade. Sasa's transfer immediately inspired great hopes among Villa's supporters. Hopefully, he'll settle at Villa quickly, and live up to the reputation he had at Bolton. To fans of the latter, his transfer was a big surprise, since he had just signed a longer contract at the Wanderers. The Bolton manager also expressed that he regretted Curcic leaving, but that Sasa himself wished to move. So far, he has only shown short bursts of his extreme talent and skill, but he, like all humans, need to settle first. Few Villans doubted Curcic's time would come, until he suddenly approached Brian Little only two days into the new year, and asked for a transfer. It seemed Sasa was on his way out of the Villa. Brian Little expressed his will to let him go, as Sasa seemed unhappy with the club generally. Shortly into the 97-98 season, several clubs showed interest, including Sheffield Wednesday and Wolverhampton, but given the price Brian Little originally paid for him, none of their offers - rumoured in the vicinity of £2 million - seemed alright to the manager. With Townsend's sale, the sale of Curcic didn't get any easier. A few weeks later, however, Brian Little and Sasa Curcic settled the last of their problems, and Sasa reported his wish to stay. He was taken off the transfer list and started his fight for his place among the starting 11.
This never happened, he was rarely even seen the bench
in the 97-98 season. Crystal Palace signed Curcic for £1 million on February
25 after having shown interest in him for about a month ... anyway, this was
what everybody thought. It turned out he couldn't have his work permit renewed
due to lack of appearances, and he is forced to stay at Aston Villa for the
time being. Then, just shy of a month after this, he married his fiancee Lisa,
and this solved all his working permit problems. He was then able to sign for
Palace, which he did on March 26, two hours before the deadline, for £1
million.
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Until the end of his Aston Villa career |
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Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the
games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats
include cup games. |
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| Season | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990-93 | OFK Belgrade | 0 | 0 |
| 93-94 | Partizan Belgrade | 32 (1) | 8 |
| 94-95 | -//- | 30 (1) | 6 |
| 95-96 | -//- | 10 | 2 |
| Bolton Wanderers | 33 | 7 | |
| 96-97 | Aston Villa | 20 (5) | 1 |
| 97-98 | -//- | 3 (6) | 0 |
| Villa record | 23 (11) | 1 | |
| Total record | 128 (13) | 24 | |