10 Players Who Stole A Living From Newcastle United

3. Christian Bassedas

You don't make more than 250 games for any team without showing something to justify it, and former Velez Sarsfield captain came with a pretty high billing when he signed from the Argentinian side for £3.5m in 2000. Sadly, everyone seemed to ignore that he had made his name at Velez as a sweeper, or that the Argentinian league might as well have been a completely different sport to the English Premier League. Bassedas quickly showed why those moments of ignorance were so stupid, as he basically decided to retire after the first robust challenge that came in on him. The slight, light-weight midfielder was knocked about by physically more imposing players and was visibly shaken to the point that he quickly looked like all of his confidence had been sucked out of him. He looked about as far away from a £3.5m midfielder as was humanly possible, and he goes down alongside Fumaca as one of the rare blips in Sir Bobby Robson's time at Newcastle. The tragedy of Bassedas is that he clearly knows the game - he is currently Velez's general manager and has presided over their most successful period - but he was simply not suited to the Premier League, and was effectively paid as a place-holder until someone more fitting came along. So traumatised was he by his time at Newcastle that the player retired two months after leaving and returning to Argentina.