Looking back upon Premier League flops is a common pastime of the English media.
But ranking a player as quite simply a humongous hit or an erroneous miss often feels like a somewhat superficial analysis; there are so many variables in the beautiful game and so many differences between not only top flights but also the clubs within them that any number of factors can cause what should be a water-tight signing to spectacularly tank.
With that in mind, FootballFanCast takes a look at five major transfers from the last 25 years of Premier League action that should have worked but for one reason or another inevitably didn’t…
Juan Sebastian Veron – Manchester United & Chelsea
A shining star of Serie A with Sampdoria, Parma and Lazio, winning the Italian top flight, the UEFA Cup and the Coppa Italia twice, the top assistor at the 1998 World Cup and a member of Pele’s famous FIFA 100, Juan Sebastian Veron may well be the most talented player to never make it in the Premier League. In fact, after leaving England he went on to enjoy two more solid seasons in Italy, before returning to his native Argentina where he continues playing to this day at the age of 42 and has twice won the South American Player of the Year award.
Veron was so talented that not one but two Premier League clubs decided to invest nearly £45million in him combined, Chelsea taking a punt on the midfielder after two very unspectacular seasons at Old Trafford. Both sides suffered the same problem, however, in not understanding how to get the best out of the midfielder. Nowadays, he’d be part of a central midfield three, but back in 2001 when 4-4-2 ruled supreme, he more often than not found himself lumbering on the wing, expected to provide world-class playmaking from out wide.
Veron always lacked the natural speed for that role and although his performances in the Champions League were regularly superior – in fact, he was the competition’s top provider in 2001/02 and netted four times in 11 outings the campaign after for United – his Premier League form duly suffered. Talented enough to be a Premier League great, yet disastrously misused.
Robbie Keane – Liverpool
Unlike Veron, Robbie Keane had spent almost the entirety of his career in English football, barring a short-lived stint at Inter Milan at the turn of the millennium. In fact, by the time Liverpool had acquired his services in 2008 for a pricy £19million, the former Ireland international had established himself as one of the best forwards in the Premier League with six campaigns of reaching double figures under his belt and famed for not only scoring goals but also making them.
Aged 28 at the time, it wasn’t necessarily a question of Keane going beyond his peak either. Actually, he’d later go on to score eleven more Premier League goals in 34 games upon returning to White Hart Lane, before scoring for Aston Villa and West Ham in the top flight and racking up a frankly ridiculous amount of goals in the MLS.
Liverpool too, were an attacking side much like Tottenham albeit with a hint of Rafa Benitez balance. But for whatever reason, it just didn’t click for Keane on Merseyside. 19 Premier League appearances produced just five goals, a vibrant partnership with Fernando Torres failed to materialise and in January 2009 Keane was sold back to Spurs – for £7million less than Liverpool had paid only six months earlier.
Radamel Falcao – Manchester United & Chelsea (Loan)
For much of his career, Radamel Falcao has been one of European football’s deadliest front-men. Between 2009 and 2013, during spells with FC Porto and Atletico Madrid, he scored 142 goals in 178 appearances – a strike-rate of 0.8 goals per match – firing his way to consecutive Europa League titles, a Copa del Rey and a Primeira Liga title. But then came a move to emerging free-spenders Monaco for a controversial £54million sum that put the stoppers on the Colombians career.
During his first season, Falcao netted eleven goals in 19 appearances for Monaco, but rumours of his disillusionment in France soon came to light alongside accusations that he was actually two years older than believed, coinciding with an ACL injury that would end his season in January and keep him out of the World Cup.
Once the tournament in Brazil had come to an end, Manchester United unexpectedly launched a loan swoop on transfer deadline day, with the £43.5million option to acquire Falcao’s services permanently. But the South American did not enjoy a happy time in the Premier League, scoring just four times for Manchester United before joining Chelsea on loan the season after and making only twelve appearances across all competitions, and returned to Monaco with his tail between his legs.
The assumption was quite simply, the injury essentially ending Falcao’s career at top level. But that was contradicted last season by 21 goals in 29 appearances for Monaco, clinching them the French title. Clearly, Falcao’s failings in England stemmed a little deeper than just a dodgy knee; the big difference last season, compared to United and Chelsea sides in poor form, was the sheer level of pace surrounding him in the Monaco attack.
Fernando Torres – Chelsea
Much like Robbie Keane, Fernando Torres’ Premier League record was about as exemplary as it gets when Chelsea paid a club-record £50million for his services in January 2011. Three-and-a-half seasons at Liverpool saw him produce 81 goals in 142 appearances, 65 coming in the Premier League, whilst his exploits with Spain by that time included the 2008 European Championship, winning the Man of the Match award in the final, and the 2010 World Cup, although he was largely overshadowed at the latter tournament by David Villa.
Even during his final six months at Liverpool, in which Torres’ form notably dipped following some injury problems the season prior, the Spaniard still notched up nine goals in the top flight – including three in the month prior to his blockbuster move to Stamford Bridge.
But the Fernando Torres who was indisputably one of the best strikers in the world at Liverpool simply didn’t turn up in west London. Although Torres won the Champions League and the Europa League during his time at Chelsea – famously scoring the goal to get the Blues to the final of the former tournament in 2012 against Barcelona – he netted just 45 times in 172 appearances, only 20 of those goals coming in the top flight. Throughout, Torres developed an incredible knack of fluffing the easiest of chances, making his comeback seem all the more impossible.
Torres’ drastic decline is still somewhat of a mystery to this day, the debate over whether Chelsea’s tactics, a chronic knee condition or simply a failure to recover from a crisis of confidence being to blame continuing to rumble on. Torres now plies his trade with boyhood club Atletico Madrid, but he’s never come close to returning to his former powers.
Angel Di Maria – Manchester United
After emerging as one of the key driving forces behind Real Madrid’s 2012/13 Champions League title in a newfound central role, Angel Di Maria was billed as a huge coup for Manchester United; a proven Argentina international of obvious quality who could be utilised in a variety of different positions – exactly the kind of player Louis van Gaal craved and Manchester United desperately needed after a harrowing single season under David Moyes.
The attacker’s Premier League career too, started incredibly brightly. In fact, one of his earliest appearances produced a deft lob against Leicester City that later went on to win the Premier League’s goal of the season award for 2014/15.
But after an international break in November, Di Maria just wasn’t quite the same, whilst reports of a burglary on his property in Manchester soon emerge. After that, it quickly became apparent that the South American wasn’t enjoying his time in England and his form spectacularly tanked, to the point where United’s club-record signing was starting regularly on the bench and in some matches wasn’t even brought on.
The summer after, van Gaal was suspiciously non-committal on Di Maria’s future and he eventually signed for PSG, where he’s gone on to bag 28 goals in 86 appearances across all competitions and become an integral component of the starting XI.
If it wasn’t for that burglary, he could still be one of the top talents in the Premier League today.
