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Chelsea are responsible for the two worst ever Premier League signings
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Record buys can quickly turn into the biggest flops
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One dud faked his own kidnapping while the rest simply missed the target
They came, they saw, they very much failed to conquer.
Across the Premier League’s lengthy existence, we have cringed in embarrassment at a multitude of flops and failures, as they tried in vain to reach mediocrity, often saddled with expensive fees.
These are the worst. Or should that be the best? No, definitely the worst.
10) Savio - Brescia to West Ham
The Ugandan-born Savio Nsereko was barely pulling up trees at Serie B side Brescia when West Ham came calling in 2009 offering an eye-watering sum of £9m.
The transfer later led to an internal investigation but by then a player who was equally average up front or on the wing had been sold off to Fiorentina for a huge loss.
In 14 years, for 16 different clubs, the ineffective attacker managed to score a mere 25 times, none of which were for the Hammers.
He is today better known for reportedly faking his own kidnapping in 2012, as he attempted to inveigle £25,000 from his family. A grand for every one of his career goals.
9) Steve Marlet - Lyon to Fulham
One of the shrewdest UK football bets around at present is to back high-flying Fulham to repeat their feat of 2001 and gain promotion from the second tier as champions.
Should they do so, let’s hope some harsh lessons have been recalled from that time, when the Cottagers, heavily funded by Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, embarked on a spending splurge to immediately establish themselves among the elite.
Goalkeeper Edwin Van Der Sarr was purchased, who was a terrific coup. Then came the record signing of Marlet, who sadly proved disastrous.
The French forward was the flavour of the month that summer, having fired five goals in the Champions League and struck up a fearsome partnership with Sonny Anderson at Lyon.
In his first season, the £11.5m washout was out-scored by Barry Hayles and it only went downhill from there.
8) Alexis Sanchez - Arsenal to Manchester United
Swap deals are a rarity these days and that perhaps is unsurprising when we think back to the start of 2018, when Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez headed to Old Trafford and United flop Henrikh Mkhitaryan passed him on the M1, going the other way.
The latter greatly disappointed at the Emirates, quickly becoming a peripheral figure. As for Sanchez, his electrifying bursts and individual magic seemingly disappeared overnight, as a series of anonymous displays had the Stretford End worried.
Just five goals in 45 outings was the Chilean’s final contribution and all for a princely £391,000 a week, plus a substantial bonus package.
7) Eliaquim Mangala - Porto to Manchester City
The burly centre-back enjoyed an outstanding debut for the Blues against Chelsea in 2014, bullying Diego Costa into submission throughout.
It was an impeccable performance, one that had supporters believing their club had bought extremely well that summer, if for a lofty fee of £32m.
Unfortunately, Mangala’s introduction was to be the biggest false dawn since passengers of the Titanic awoke on day four to delight in the chilly landscape.
Mangala is one of a handful of failed footballers widely infamous for their ineptitude. He was atrociously bad at the aspects of the game he was purchased for. He was worse at everything else.
6) Danny Drinkwater - Leicester City to Chelsea
Google informs us that Drinkwater is presently plying his trade on loan at Reading. Try to delve any further and you’re soon taken to sites espousing the health benefits to consuming more H20.
The mere fact that a search engine is required to locate a player who was so recently a title winner and England international says everything about the dramatic decline of this midfielder’s once flourishing career.
In 2006, he was a pivotal figure in Leicester’s league-winning fairytale. He would have been a regular fixture in our EPL tips, admired for his ability to pop up with a crucial goal in addition to protecting the Foxes’ back-line.
Now, courtesy of one horribly misguided transfer he has become the invisible man.
5) Juan Sebastian Veron - Lazio to Manchester United
“You’re all idiots.” That was Sir Alex Ferguson’s response – minus an expletive or two – to journalists critical of his struggling Argentine midfielder Veron.
At the time, the general consensus among the press pack being that a player twice voted South American Player of the Year was proving to be an expensive dud at Old Trafford.
In hindsight, we can deem his overall displays for the Reds to be satisfactory but considering the player’s enormous talent, was that in itself satisfactory? It was not.
Great things were expected of Veron when he arrived via Rome. Instead, he produced the same levels as Quinton Fortune.
4) Francis Jeffers - Everton to Arsenal
The Liverpool-born hitman cost half of what Fulham paid for Steve Marlet that same summer, but context adds a hefty surcharge.
Arsene Wenger’s Gunners had finished runner-up for three seasons in a row at the turn of this century and after some studied analysis the owlish professor determined what his team lacked was a proven finisher.
The beautiful, passing football they had covered. What they needed was an end-product.
Jeffers was a logical target after accruing a strike-rate at Goodison just shy of one in two and eight million pounds later, Wenger had his ‘fox in the box’.
Alas, Jeffers made only 26 appearances for Arsenal, scoring just four times. In his final outing he was sent off which perfectly summed up his dismal spell in North London.
3) Andy Carroll - Newcastle to Liverpool
Cash-rich from selling Fernando Torres to Chelsea, the Merseysiders contrived to sign one of their greatest modern players and their biggest flop in living memory all in the same summer. That’s actually impressive.
While Luis Suarez hit the ground running, scoring for fun, Carroll was burdened by the British transfer record required to prise him from the North-East.
Amidst a lightning-quick forward-line he appeared out-of-sorts even on the occasions he was passed fit to play and just six goals in 44 is a sorry summation of his woes.
Our Premier League Odds pitch Liverpool as second favourites to lift the title and that’s largely down to their striking options that put the fear of whatever deity you believe in into opponents.
Carroll by comparison was like a blindfolded bouncer. He didn’t scare anyone.
2) Fernando Torres - Liverpool to Chelsea
The Spanish striker was a phenomenon at Anfield, becoming the fastest ever Liverpool player to reach fifty goals, banging in 33 of them in an astonishing debut season.
He was rapid, lethal, and made the spectacular look routine. In short, he was exactly the kind of forward our Fantasy Premier League tips suggest is purchased at any cost. Because when he played he scored, or assisted, or scored and assisted.
The Spanish striker at Chelsea, following his colossal £50m transfer, was none of the above. Seemingly overnight he became Clark Kent without a phone-box to be seen.
He stuttered and tripped himself up and appeared to be frightened of his own shadow. A revision of his time in the capital has some now insisting that he wasn’t that bad after all. He was.
1) Andriy Shevchenko - AC Milan to Chelsea
What is it about deadly, renowned hitmen heading to Stamford Bridge and having their superpowers taken from them? Romelu Lukaku beware.
In 2006 the Ukrainian Ballon d’Or winner signed for league champions Chelsea and the rest of the Premier League gave up all realistic hope of toppling Jose Mourinho’s lean, mean, relentless machine anytime soon.
That’s because Shevchenko was as good as it got, a ruthless, goalscoring marvel who converted on a regular basis from any angle or distance, usually in an efficient manner that cooled the blood.
At AC Milan this clinical technician had blasted home 127 goals of every variety so what chance did Wigan, Charlton and Reading rearguards have against the footballing equivalent of Ivan Drago?
In the event, they coped quite well. Across three disappointing campaigns this generational striker scored just nine top-flight goals.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 28th January 2022
