Ryan Semple
When I think of a hype train that well and truly derailed, the first player that drops into my mind is Ryan Semple. He arrived at Sincil Bank from Peterborough in an unofficial swap deal for Simon Yeo. I think that left him with a lot to live up to, and we heard plenty about how good he might be. Bearing in mind he arrived in the summer of 2006 as well, the opportunity was surely on a plate as we switched to attacking, attractive football.
Sadly, injury dogged his time at City and he was restricted to just four appearances from the bench. He had spells on loan with Chester and Rushden, equally as unproductive, he bagged his only Imps goal in the friendly with Liverpool. He played his last game for us in November 2006 as we went down 3-1 to Darlington, but was still around the squad when Peter Jackson took over a year later. His contract was finally terminated in January 2008 at the age of 23.
After leaving City, Semple couldn’t find another club, so he took up coaching, having done his level 2 as a scholar at Posh. He recently went back to London Road, after time coaching with Manchester City.