Your 5 worst signings in Premier League history?

Gavinb33 said:
If you go back Chris Sutton signed for Chelsea for 5 million which was a decent amount and I think he only scored 1 goal for them which might have been against us and then left the following season.

I'm surprised not many people have mentioned Robinho
Click to expand...

10 million more like.
He was 5m to Blackburn.
 
I know I'll be biased but N'Dombele has to be it for me.

When you factor in the cost, the wages, the expectations and the stature of the club (ie that we're not able to write off such large sums of money). He is still on our books, stinks up every yearly loan we send him on and we're having to pay a large percentage of his wages each time.

Awful in every way.
 
Another element that is not usually factored in is how likely a transfer is to come good beforehand. I mean, there are very expensive transfers that even the most casual of fans have serious doubts about the fit of the player in question into the new team/squad, but a whole army of supposed professional football executives green light it anyway at the highest conceivable fee. That's why (together with a few other aggravating circumstances) I'll totally die on the hill that Coutinho to Barcelona is comfortably the worst transfer ever for the buying club and probably the best ever for the selling club too. Even peak Coutinho was very obviously a horrendous fit for 2018 Barcelona, which is in my view a significant reason why Hazard to Madrid is not nearly as bad; he might have come good, but everybody (except Barcelona board members in charge of transfers) knew even at the time Coutinho was never ever going to.
 
Gavinb33 said:
If you go back Chris Sutton signed for Chelsea for 5 million which was a decent amount and I think he only scored 1 goal for them which might have been against us and then left the following season.

I'm surprised not many people have mentioned Robinho
Click to expand...

Sutton cost £10 mil and scored 3. Mega flop for sure.
 
Alot of the Fulham 2002 or so squad were expensive flops along with Tiguan, Malbranque/Marlet to name but a couple but theres far too much recency bias here, Bosnich was a terrible signing for both United and Chelsea as was Taibi but if you are going pound for pound the worst signings sure go for your Torres/Shevchenko/Sanchez's of this world but there have been some *truly* terrible purchases in Prem history which are up there.

Watford signing Steven Glass at the time (along with Vialli's 2000 signings tbh, R.I.P) was horrendous for the club, a free transfer but reported rumours to be on massive wages (100,000 a week?!)

then you have perennial relegation champion in Nigel Quashie who loved rocking up at clubs and being terrible, Francis Jeffers being another crap signing along with Altidore who couldnt hit a barn door!

Roque Junior was an absolute terrible signing for Leeds probably along with everyone else they signed before being relegated.
 
Last edited:
Aquilani was a massive failure for Liverpool.

KeanoMagicHat said:
A lot yeah. Some older ones - Stan Collymore to Villa, Steve Marlet to Fulham, Seth Johnson to Leeds.
Click to expand...

Harsh on Johnson, a 22-yr old talent sought by a number of clubs when Leeds paid 7m (Oct 2000 figure) for him with a further 2m based on appearance clauses. Injuries ruined him and later Ridsdale refused to let him get that 50th match (and likely more), literally paying him to sit just to avoid bonus clauses. It's been said his reported wages were also mythical and much lower than the press and fans ran wild with. I watched a few of his Derby performances recently and he looked far better than I recall. Perhaps a "what if" player or perhaps never destined for a bigger club spot until Leeds did what Leeds do back then. 7m wasn't a massive outlay in 2000 especially for an English player that comes with the English club to English club "tax."

Wasn't there a young English keeper Arsenal spent a big sum on around the same time only for him to flop? Or maybe it was Kirkland to Liverpool. Or both.
 
Precaution said:
Alot of the Fulham 2002 or so squad were expensive flops along with Tiguan, Malbranque/Marlet to name but a couple but theres far too much recency bias here, Bosnich was a terrible signing for both United and Chelsea as was Taibi but if you are going pound for pound the worst signings sure go for your Torres/Shevchenko/Sanchez's of this world but there have been some *truly* terrible purchases in Prem history which are up there.
Click to expand...

Wait what, I remember him being quite decent for them? £4.5m transfer in 2001 was a pretty average transfer fee and on the lower end iirc.
 
5 City stinkers

Danny Mills: took the club for every cent he could giving very little back.

Wayne Bridge: expensive permacrock

Eliaquim Mangala: Willing but not able

Wilfried Bony: contacted Malaria which may mitigate unbelievable shiteness.

Kalvin Phillips: crap beyond belief
 
Mount to United - Its not just the fact it was an obscene amount of money for someone who'd a) been a bit rubbish for a while and b) barely played/been injured all season, but the fact the signing made absolutely no sense regardless of the fee. United needed more players in nearly every position except for the one Mason Mount plays...and then they've tried to pretend he's a CM instead.

Sancho to United - Again not just the fee, because I don't think Sancho is an awful player, but when you desperately need a new central midfield, spending the best part of £100m on a right winger who prefers to play on the left where all your other wingers prefer to play, is a bit dumb. Then after signing Sancho, for the best part of £100m, Ole decided to instill confidence in him by immediately preferring to play Daniel James. Then to compound matters further from this already extremely dumb sequence of events, Sancho almost invariably played like garbage.

Torres to Chelsea - Probably a bit harsh without hindsight, but unfortunately, hindsight is a thing. Also just the fact he was so bad at scoring goals for Chelsea, there was a website dedicated to whether TOrres had scored any goals for Chelsea yet, which was literally just he word "no"

Kewell to Liverpool - I think it was only £5m so based on the fee alone he wouldn't make the list, but then after they signed him there was a big fuss about how much of the fee went to his agent, and then he gave it large very publicly about joining Liverpool due to them being on an upward spiral and United being on a downward one, and then shortly after he did some interview where it revealed he was a massive toxic idiot at Leeds. Then he also turned out to be really terrible for Liverpool. The ghost of Harry Kewell still haunts the Old Trafford pitch to this day, still yet to complete the stepover he first started to attempt against Wes Brown in 2004.

Someone else to Chelsea probably - Its very hard to be specific about the fifth player except they it is almost definitely a Chelsea player. They signed Drinkwater for money. Chris Sutton was hilariously awful. The Lukaku re-signing was just completely bizarre. Their current team is worth so much it would need to win every game about 15-0 for there not to be a reason to suspect 3-4 (at least) of the players should be on this list.

I wanted to put Andy Carroll on this list too but I put Sancho there and now can't be bothered to change it. Also haven't really counted City players because I find it very hard to take them seriously.
 
Rasendori said:
Ricky Van Wolfswinkel transfer to Norwich in 13/14. Ricky scored on his Premier League debut, and never scored again. Norwich finished the season with just 28 goals, and got relegated. As you can imagine, relegation is a huge financial impact, and it meant Norwich had to cut their losses by selling their two best players in Robert Snodgrass and Leroy Fer.

John Hartson - The acquisition of John Hartson to Wimbledon, made him a club record signing at £7.5 million. Scored two goals in his first premier league Season. And in his second season, he fared better on the goal scoring front, but much to the dismay of Wimbledon, missed out on pretty much the whole second half of the season, was something like December till May he was out.

This was especially unfortunate as it meant he was unavailable to play in their shock defeat in the Fa Cup to Fulham who although decent in 2024, but at the time of 1999/2000 it was the case that Fulham were playing in the first division, so could have been a real opportunity for Wimbledon to cash in on the financial opportunities, such as the prize money for each round, especially given that the very Fulham that knocked out Wimbledon, went out to Tranmere Rovers who were also languishing in the First Division. I don't say that to knock Fulham or Tranmere, its just that expenses can quickly add up and need to be covered by revenue streams such as ticket sales, increased gate receipts, broadcasting rights (matches in the latter stages are often televised and just imagine if it was a home game which presents opportunities for merchandise to be sold etc) , sponsorships, and prize money from competitions like the FA Cup.

Unfortunately, with his injury woes it was difficult to move him on, meaning John Hartson had to leave on a free transfer. And remember how I mentioned he was out for the majority of the second half of his second season, well there were significant implications in the league. As I mentioned earlier, he fared better on the goal scoring front in his second season as Wimbledon had a decent start to the campaign in 99/00 with some crucial draws. It was his absence for the second half of the season which contributed heavily to Wimbledon's results falling off a cliff, and they ended up being relegated. To put that into perspective, since the Premier League was formed in 1992, they hadn't been relegated once. And Wimbledon never recovered, they were dissolved in 2004.

José Bosingwa - QPR - Bosingwa joined QPR in 12/13 on a three year contract. And he was horrendous, to the extent he was their worst player in 12/13. To make matters worse, it wasn't just on the pitch he caused issues, at one point he refused to be on the bench. Needless to say, QPR were relegated and ended the players contract after a nightmare debut season, and took their losses on the two years left on his contract. Disastrous.



Fun fact, this reminds me of a special case. Well fun for me at least. If this isn't palatable to what you expected from creating the thread @Fortitude then by all means let me know. Naturally in a thread title predicated on worst signings in Premier League history, I normally wouldn't mention this signing, but I feel given the mitigating circumstances it at the very least contributes to the conversation. Basically Jean-Kévin Augustin's stint at Leeds United in January 2020 is a prime example. It's worth noting that Leeds were in the Championship at the time. Leeds had the option to sign him permanently for a hefty £17.7 million, but things didn't quite go as planned.

Augustin's time at Leeds was plagued by injuries and rumors of him not following the coach's orders. What makes this story stand out is that Leeds actually secured promotion to the Premier League that season, and its been reported that there was a clause in the contract that made Leeds obligated to complete a permanent transfer as a result of a promotion clause.

So this should've been a signing for Leeds in the Premier League. However, Leeds used the unique situation of the Corona Virus to insist the clause should be voided, and obviously RB Leipzig were having none of it. So Leeds made their appeal, and lost. They actually made a second appeal which was withdrawn in 2024 from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Speaking of bang for buck, this is a player that had just 48 minutes in the Championship and zero minutes in the Premier League. And this would be quite the financial setback.
Click to expand...
Nice informative post. Some stuff in there I didn't know the finer details about. Cheers for that. :)
 
criticalanalysis said:
Wait what, I remember him being quite decent for them? £4.5m transfer in 2001 was a pretty average transfer fee and on the lower end iirc.
Click to expand...

Ah i meant in that era, Malbranque was okay and yeah definitely not a flop twas more of an illustration of there's more to bad signings that recent one's.

Veron was terrible for Chelsea + United, didn't he cost £20mill (both times) too which at the time was expensive
 
Last edited:
Klaassen to Everton
Djemba-Djemba to United
Marcelino to Newcastle
Chu-Young to Aresenal
Bolasie to Everton
Niasse to Everton
Jeffers to Everton
Owen to Newcastle
Rebrov to Spurs
Hargreaves to United
Aquilani to Liverpool
Bentley to Spurs
Balotelli yo Liverpool
Bogarde to Chelsea
Brolin to Leeds
 
Gentleman Jim said:
5 City stinkers

Danny Mills: took the club for every cent he could giving very little back.

Wayne Bridge: expensive permacrock

Eliaquim Mangala: Willing but not able

Wilfried Bony: contacted Malaria which may mitigate unbelievable shiteness.

Kalvin Phillips: crap beyond belief
Click to expand...
Add Roque Santa-Cruz
 
noodlehair said:
Mount to United - Its not just the fact it was an obscene amount of money for someone who'd a) been a bit rubbish for a while and b) barely played/been injured all season, but the fact the signing made absolutely no sense regardless of the fee. United needed more players in nearly every position except for the one Mason Mount plays...and then they've tried to pretend he's a CM instead.

Sancho to United - Again not just the fee, because I don't think Sancho is an awful player, but when you desperately need a new central midfield, spending the best part of £100m on a right winger who prefers to play on the left where all your other wingers prefer to play, is a bit dumb. Then after signing Sancho, for the best part of £100m, Ole decided to instill confidence in him by immediately preferring to play Daniel James. Then to compound matters further from this already extremely dumb sequence of events, Sancho almost invariably played like garbage.

Torres to Chelsea - Probably a bit harsh without hindsight, but unfortunately, hindsight is a thing. Also just the fact he was so bad at scoring goals for Chelsea, there was a website dedicated to whether TOrres had scored any goals for Chelsea yet, which was literally just he word "no"

Kewell to Liverpool - I think it was only £5m so based on the fee alone he wouldn't make the list, but then after they signed him there was a big fuss about how much of the fee went to his agent, and then he gave it large very publicly about joining Liverpool due to them being on an upward spiral and United being on a downward one, and then shortly after he did some interview where it revealed he was a massive toxic idiot at Leeds. Then he also turned out to be really terrible for Liverpool. The ghost of Harry Kewell still haunts the Old Trafford pitch to this day, still yet to complete the stepover he first started to attempt against Wes Brown in 2004.

Someone else to Chelsea probably - Its very hard to be specific about the fifth player except they it is almost definitely a Chelsea player. They signed Drinkwater for money. Chris Sutton was hilariously awful. The Lukaku re-signing was just completely bizarre. Their current team is worth so much it would need to win every game about 15-0 for there not to be a reason to suspect 3-4 (at least) of the players should be on this list.

I wanted to put Andy Carroll on this list too but I put Sancho there and now can't be bothered to change it. Also haven't really counted City players because I find it very hard to take them seriously.
Click to expand...

Kewell was bizarre, he was genuinely very good at Leeds and totally dropped off. Injuries played a part but not the whole part.
 
Kewell was fantastic at Leeds, Giggs level at times, I thought he was the best Leeds player when they were good

thinking about it I can remember Giggs dropped off heavy around the early 2000s so Kewell may even have been better for a spell
 
This might be a category on its own, but there should be extra weight given to signings of players you know aren’t going to be good, but waste a load of money on anyway.

Chelsea knew Veron wasn’t a great fit for the league, but covered our costs for him anyway. Then they did it again with Lukaku.

We signed Pogba a second time, knowing full well that he was a dick.

It’s like the opposite of paying extra for “Prem proven”.
 
Precaution said:
Veron was terrible for Chelsea + United, didn't he cost £20mill (both times) too which at the time was expensive
Click to expand...
30 to Man United then 15 to Chelsea.

The Chelsea one was arguably a worse transfer (despite being half the cost) as he'd proved he couldn't do it in the Premier League and we still be light him.
 
IMO the next two games are Mason Mount's last chance to save himself from the crown.

United would have had very nearly an identical season if they had waited and signed him on a free - the transfer fee and year's wages were effectively spent on nothing.

Antony, Drinkwater, Kepa, at least did something.

If not Mount, it's possibly Guido Carrillo to Southampton. Nearly £20m for a striker who scored no goals and left the next summer. A lot of the names in this thread have been disappointing but nowhere near the worst ever IMO.
 
Recency bias isn't that surprising giving the enormous fees paid for absolute tat and the subsequent resell value of that tat. Pepe for example being bought for c. 70m and going for free is atrocious business, even if they performed well but they were crap hence the inclusion in this thread. So many other players have the same trend.
 
Noot said:
IMO the next two games are Mason Mount's last chance to save himself from the crown.

United would have had very nearly an identical season if they had waited and signed him on a free - the transfer fee and year's wages were effectively spent on nothing.

Antony, Drinkwater, Kepa, at least did something.
Click to expand...

What makes you think he would've gone to Man United if he was available on a free?

Mount to Man United isn't remotely close to being one of the worst prem signings ever. The Yorkshire Pirlo to your lot was way, way worse.
 
duffer said:
What makes you think he would've gone to Man United if he was available on a free?

Mount to Man United isn't remotely close to being one of the worst prem signings ever. The Yorkshire Pirlo to your lot was way, way worse.
Click to expand...

How so? Mount was more expensive and has played far less. We'll probably recoup a better fee for Phillips than United will for Mount, too.

You also have to take into account that Mount's fee was always insane, whereas Phillips' cost looked pretty reasonable at the time.
 
Torres to Chelsea was awful but I think the Carroll to Liverpool transfer on the same day was worse? £35m, record fee for a british player and scored 6 in 44, was injured most of the time. Maybe gets forgotten about a bit because of the Suarez signing the same window.

Pepe to Arsenal and Ndombele to Spurs, both club record signings and contributed next to nothing.
 
Carrol was a bad signing for what he performed as but they recouped around half of the fee they paid for him so I think that helps his cause in this debate.
 
Noot said:
How so? Mount was more expensive and has played far less. We'll probably recoup a better fee for Phillips than United will for Mount, too.

You also have to take into account that Mount's fee was always insane, whereas Phillips' cost looked pretty reasonable at the time.
Click to expand...
Phillips got bombed out of the squad and then failed at West Ham. Pep even called him out for being a chonker.

Mount has been injured.
 
Gavinb33 said:
If you go back Chris Sutton signed for Chelsea for 5 million which was a decent amount and I think he only scored 1 goal for them which might have been against us and then left the following season.

I'm surprised not many people have mentioned Robinho
Click to expand...

I'm sure Chelsea decided to play him at centre back too.

Robinho was alright. Decent first season but threw in the towel the next.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.