Ranking: 12 of the worst football transfers in Football History
Having talked about some the World’s Wonderkids who couldn’t just live up to their potential in our last edition , this time we will look at some of worst player transfers in football history.
How did we decide which player makes the list you might ask? Pretty simple!
We had to assess the impact a player had on a club versus the impact he would have been expected to have when he signed originally. So without further ado let’s have a look at which players make the list.
12. Juan Sebastian Verón (Lazio to Manchester United)
In 2001 , Manchester United paid Lazio a British record fee to sign Juan Sebastian Verón and it all seemed like good business at first when he hit the ground running scoring three goals in his first four Premier League outings. But with the chaotic pace of English football , Juan Verón's performances took a massive nosedive.
Later in 2003 , Manchester United decided to cut their losses on the midfielder and sell him to Chelsea in a £15 million deal, an estimated loss of £13.1 million on the fee they paid Lazio two years ago, with Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson later admitting he offloaded Juan Sebastian Veron because he felt the Argentine star could not handle the rigours of The English Premier League.
"Juan Veron was capable of exceptional football and was talented. But, at times, he found the Premiership a bit difficult," declared Ferguson.
"He was a European player and that was where we got our best form from him."
However, Argentine was no better at Stamford Bridge, making just seven Premier League appearances before returning to Italy.
11. Christian Benteke (Aston Villa to Liverpool)
Prior to his switch to Anfield , the Belgian forward impressed in the Premier League across three seasons with Aston Villa and scoring 49 goals in 101 appearances for the Villans.
After his switch from Aston Villa , Christian Benteke proved to be a £32.5 million flop at Liverpool with the Belgian struggling to make the impact expected of him at liverpool.
Although Benteke had his moments during his spell at Anfield - a smashing goal against Bordeaux in the Uefa Europa League, a spectacular scissor kick against Manchester United at Old Trafford - but these moments were all too few as the big Belgian found it hard to adapt to their style of play.
Liverpool did manage to cut their losses, selling Benteke to Crystal Palace for a fee of £27m in 2016.
10. Andy Carroll (Newcastle to Liverpool)
8th on the list we have Liverpool once again raiding another mid-table Premier League club for a physical striker who did not fit their style of play.
This time around Liverpool looked to Newcastle United for their operation “ fit square pegs in round holes” .
After Liverpool lost arguably on their best Centre Forwards in Fernando “el nino” Torres to Chelsea for a record fee of £50m, Liverpool “panic signed” English Forward Andy Carroll for British record £35m from the Magpies.
With the Powerful Forward offering a contrasting style of play to Torres's and his inability to lead the line with similar same intensity resulting in Carroll scoring just six Premier League goals in 44 appearances before West Ham eventually signed him from Liverpool hands in 2013 for £20m less than what the Reds had paid two years earlier.
9. Gaizka Mendieta (Valencia to Lazio)
There was once a time when Valencia were regarded as one of the best football teams in Europe, and midfield maestro Gaizka Mendieta was key player in that team. He was named Best Midfielder in Europe by UEFA two years in a row, with Lazio signing him in 2001 making him the sixth most expensive player of all time.
Mendieta had been in rich scoring form towards the end of his time at the Mestalla, but he failed to hit the target once in 31 appearances for the Biancocelesti, who eventually sold him to Barcelona after one season.
Gaizka Mendieta ended his career with Middlesbrough, certainly those days of Champions League stardom still reminisce.
8. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Milan to Barcelona)
It seems implausible that Zlatan could ever appear on a 'worst' list of anything. The tall Swede is one of the finest players of his generation, a stylish Forward whose poise and skill was matched by his power.
One undisputed fact is that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has scored goals everywhere he has played, and Barcelona was no different having found the net 21 times in his only full season at the Nou Camp. But nobody seemed to understand why Barcelona traded €46m and Samuel Eto'o for a striker who perhaps was arguably any better than the Cameroonian.
It’s no news to football lovers of Ibrahimovic's ego. He most often than not demands that he is top dog wherever he plays but unfortunately for the big swede, that was not the case at Barcelona. Forced to play in the shadow of one of the World’s greatest player in Lionel Messi, Zlatan grew frustrated with Barca manager Pep Guardiola and even lashed out at him after Barcelona's Champions League defeat to Inter.
He was eventually shipped back to Italy at the end of the season.
7. Tiemoue Bakayoko (AS Monaco to Chelsea)
When Chelsea signed Bakayoko from AS Monaco in the summer of 2017 for a reported fee of £40M , they certainly wouldn’t have expected the Frenchman to struggle to adapt to life in the Premier League, with supporters of Chelsea never seeing the best of him during his short stint at Stamford Bridge.
In the four years since becoming a Chelsea player, Bakayoko struggled to replicate the stellar form and performance he put on display while at AS Monaco and only made 29 Premier League appearances, with all of those coming in his debut season with the club.
6. Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea)
Prior to his switch to Chelsea , Fernando Torres was one of the best strikers on the planet during his time at Atletico Madrid and Liverpool.
However, he was surprisingly ordinary after signing for Chelsea for a reported fee of £52.7M . He was 26 upon his arrival, so it wasn't as if Chelsea had signed a player who was past his peak. It just never seemed to come together in West London for “El Niño”, who scored just once in his first half-season and never topped eight Premier League goals in his time with the club.
Chelsea had to count their losses and eventually let Fernando Torres, the most expensive player on our list, leave on a free transfer. He didn’t quite live up to expectations at Chelsea, but fans still have some fond memories of his time with the club, most notably his goal at Barcelona that sealed a place in the 2012 Champions League final.
5. Owen Hargreaves (Bayern Munich to Manchester United)
During his career, Owen Hargreaves has been a player that has shown a tremendous amount of potential. However, injuries (especially the tendonitis to his knees) prevented the Canadian-born player from achieving any significant amount of playing time for Manchester United.
2002–03 saw Hargreaves out injured on three occasions. In September he tore a thigh muscle, then in October a calf muscle. Towards the end of the season adductor problems meant he missed a further three weeks. Altogether he made 25 Bundesliga appearances, four in Cup games and three in the UEFA Champions League.
In the summer of 2007 Owen Hargreaves made the move from Bayern Munich to Man United for a fee of £22.5M, but nobody could have anticipated just how badly the English Midfielder would fare in his struggle to stay fit & injury free.
Hargreaves would go on to win the double in his debut season for United, but his career was basically over at 27.
The talented midfielder made just five more appearances in the Premier League, four of which came over his final three seasons with United. After one subsequent 14-minute appearance for Manchester City, Hargreaves retired.
4. Jonathan Woodgate (Newcastle to Real Madrid)
It’s quite unfortunate some players have their careers disrupted by injury. And Jonathan Woodgate is a player who had his career seriously blighted by fitness issues.
Jonathan Woodgate's career was one long injury disrupted by occasional periods of fitness. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Woodgate got injured at the end of the 2003/04 season, but that didn't prevent Real Madrid from signing him that summer.
Numerous injury complications meant that Woodgate didn't make his Real Madrid debut for over a year, but boy was it worth the wait. He scored an own goal after 26 minutes and was sent off for a second bookable offence midway through the second half. After just nine La Liga appearances, Woodgate returned to English treatment tables instead.
3. Angel Fabian Di Maria (Real Madrid to Manchester United )
Fast forward thirteen years on from Juan Sebastian Veron, Manchester United once again broke the British transfer record to sign another Argentine midfielder, and this time Angel Di Maria continued the trend by failing to shine at Old Trafford, despite arriving from Real Madrid with a formidable reputation. Another significant examples of United's habit of getting the least out of world-class players.
Although he started brightly, winning Manchester United's player and goal of the month awards for September, but that soon trailed off and he left for PSG after just one season for a loss of around £15m .
2. Carlos Tevez (Boca Juniors to Shanghai Shenhua)
Carlos Tevez left his boyhood club Boca Juniors for a second time in 2017 to join Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua for a record fee of £71.6m, and reportedly paid him an annual salary of $41m, making the Argentine forward the highest paid player in world football at that time.
Shenhua were hoping that Tevez would help them win a first league title since 1995, but Tevez had different priorities and later described his time in China as a 'holiday'. He scored four goals in 20 appearances and was accused of being overweight. Shenhua finished 11th, and Tevez rejoined Boca for a huge loss.
1. Ali Dia (Free transfer to Southampton)
Other players have certainly brought more damages to their club's finances or performance than Dia, who signed for free and made only one appearance with Southampton. Nobody got sacked or relegated because of Dia, although you might argue that the former should have happened given the series of colossal missteps and miscalculation that led to him making his first and only Premier League appearance.
The Dia transfer story feels as if it comes from another universe. A man calls Southampton manager Graeme Souness pretending to be World Player of the Year George Weah. The purported Milan striker recommends Dia, his cousin, suggesting he had just scored two goals for Senegal the prior week and had played with Weah for Paris Saint-Germain before spending 1995 in the German second division. He would be an exciting prospect if any of that had been true. Dia was actually a 31-year-old college student who occasionally dabbled in non-league football.