Rip off transfer flops

[Polak]

With us being midway into another transfer window I thought we could list some of the notable or even less known transfer wastes. Here are a few off the top of my head.

Kolo Muani (reportedly about to move on loan to Juventus. Perhaps he already has). Cost Paris Saint Germain 95 million euros. Great business by Frankfurt though who got him for free before they sold him for such a massive sum one year later.

Antoine Griezmann. Cost Barcelona 120 million euros. After two average seasons there was loaned back to Atletico Madrid for two seasons for 10 million euros and then finally sold back to them for 22 million.

Joao Felix. Atletico Madrid basically spent all the money they made for Griezmann and a little bit more on Joao Felix. Cost them 127 million euros. Started okay but they soon got tired of him. Loaned him to Chelsea for half a season for 11 million, then Barcelona for one season (for no fee according to transfermarkt) and finally sold him to Chelsea this season for 52 million. They got back a bit more for him than Barcelona did for Griezmann (although Joao Felix is quite a bit younger than Griezmann), but still very bad business in general.

Eden Hazard. Around 150 million euros I think. Need I say more? Possibly the biggest flop Real Madrid have ever bought.

[Greyn]

Mykhaylo Mudryk - probably best deal ever made by Todd Boehly in his life. Arsenal wanted to sign Mudryk, but Boehly, just to show the world how powerful he is, outbid the Gunners and paid 70M EUR + 30M EUR in bonuses for a player who is not even a starter at Chelsea as far as I know.

[Lorric]

Mykhaylo Mudryk - probably best deal ever made by Todd Boehly in his life. Arsenal wanted to sign Mudryk, but Boehly, just to show the world how powerful he is, outbid the Gunners and paid 70M EUR + 30M EUR in bonuses for a player who is not even a starter at Chelsea as far as I know.

They can't start him even if they wanted to right now. He's suspended for failing a drugs test.

[amenina]

Speaking of transfer flops…

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/arti ... r55dd5r2zo

Chicago Fire in Neymar talks to end Saudi stay

Neymar joined Al-Hilal from Paris St-Germain in 2023 for a league-record £77million but he has made just seven appearances, scoring one goal.

The former Barcelona striker tore his cruciate knee ligament in October 2023, which kept him out for a year.

[Oldelpaso]

With us being midway into another transfer window I thought we could list some of the notable or even less known transfer wastes. Here are a few off the top of my head.

Kolo Muani (reportedly about to move on loan to Juventus. Perhaps he already has). Cost Paris Saint Germain 95 million euros. Great business by Frankfurt though who got him for free before they sold him for such a massive sum one year later.

Frankfurt's record with such transfers makes me apprehensive about City being in for Marmoush. Jovic and Haller also went for big fees and flopped at their new club. Though in Haller's case West Ham are notorious for being where strikers fail. They could probably sign Haaland, Mbappe or Kane and they'd still drop to a 1 in 5 scoring rate.

[Lorric]

Speaking of transfer flops…

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/arti ... r55dd5r2zo

Chicago Fire in Neymar talks to end Saudi stay

Neymar joined Al-Hilal from Paris St-Germain in 2023 for a league-record £77million but he has made just seven appearances, scoring one goal.

The former Barcelona striker tore his cruciate knee ligament in October 2023, which kept him out for a year.

This doesn't really feel right for a transfer flop, someone getting injured so they couldn't play. Taken to the extreme Emiliano Sala would be the ultimate transfer flop, dying in a plane crash trying to fly in to join his new club.

I also don't think it really feels right to go by money alone either. Someone like Nicolas Pépé with his massive £72M move to Arsenal, when I saw that guy play, he wasn't making stupid mistakes, stupid decisions, or lazing his way through matches. He contributed but just wasn't anywhere near worth £72M and I don't know why anyone would have ever thought he was.

So for me the best examples would have been someone you thought was worth the money, who had been playing at the level of an £XM player, then drastically flops at their new club.

[Greyn]

So for me the best examples would have been someone you thought was worth the money, who had been playing at the level of an £XM player, then drastically flops at their new club.

Maybe Podolski and his transfer from Koln Bayern. He was a huge disappointment there, while as a Koln player he was a league superstar and constantly very good in Germany NT.

[diyx]

I remember Renato Sanchez. Moved to Bayern for 35 M€ as a hyped up teenager, and never achieved anything. He basically peaked at 18.

[rpo.castro]

Speaking of transfer flops…

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/arti ... r55dd5r2zo

Chicago Fire in Neymar talks to end Saudi stay

Neymar joined Al-Hilal from Paris St-Germain in 2023 for a league-record £77million but he has made just seven appearances, scoring one goal.

The former Barcelona striker tore his cruciate knee ligament in October 2023, which kept him out for a year.

This doesn't really feel right for a transfer flop, someone getting injured so they couldn't play. Taken to the extreme Emiliano Sala would be the ultimate transfer flop, dying in a plane crash trying to fly in to join his new club.

I also don't think it really feels right to go by money alone either. Someone like Nicolas Pépé with his massive £72M move to Arsenal, when I saw that guy play, he wasn't making stupid mistakes, stupid decisions, or lazing his way through matches. He contributed but just wasn't anywhere near worth £72M and I don't know why anyone would have ever thought he was.

So for me the best examples would have been someone you thought was worth the money, who had been playing at the level of an £XM player, then drastically flops at their new club.

Neymar was always "injured" after his legendary birthday parties. Flop was his record transfer from Barça to PSG. His career was a train-wreck after he left Barça.

[Dragonite]

Interesting topic, @Polak !

We need to establish what are metrics for being a "flop".

Is it an "expensive" player that didn't play much despite being expensive?

Is it an "expensive" player that played a lot but didn't play well (individual results or team results)?

Is it an "expensive" player that left some time later for a lot less than what the club paid for him (extreme case: leaving for free)? And in this case, don't we have to wait for him to leave before knowing?

Can it be unrelated to transfer price?

[amenina]

Interesting topic, @Polak !

We need to establish what are metrics for being a "flop".

Is it an "expensive" player that didn't play much despite being expensive?

Is it an "expensive" player that played a lot but didn't play well (individual results or team results)?

Is it an "expensive" player that left some time later for a lot less than what the club paid for him (extreme case: leaving for free)? And in this case, don't we have to wait for him to leave before knowing?

Can it be unrelated to transfer price?

There is also the consideration of how the "bad" transfer affected the club. For example, Neymar's career at Al-Hilal was obviously unremarkable given his long-term injury, but Al-Hilal have so much money that they probably don't care one way or the other, and he left the club on good terms to rejoin Santos.

Somebody cited Eden Hazard at Real Madrid. Again, his performances were not so many and largely anonymous, but still in his 4 years there Real Madrid won 2 league titles, 1 Copa del Rey, and 1 UCL (unused sub in the final). So the club was able to kind of withstand that one bad transfer.

On the opposite side, the one "flop" transfer that came into my mind was Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal to Man United. It came with so much fanfare (the piano playing intro video), and it should have worked excellently given the caliber of the player at that time, yet from the first match everybody seemed to just realize the transfer did not make sense at all, and it formed a part of the whole decline and chaos of the club during that period.

[Lorric]

There's two players who could be considered for Manchester City: Jack Grealish and Kalvin Philips. They both got their moves on the back of being impressive. I wonder how @Oldelpaso feels. Grealish, I don't understand. He's looked good in an England shirt over the period whenever he's got into the team, still the same guy with the same impressive physique being a magnet for fouls and working hard for the team and I haven't thought he's looked bad in a City shirt whenever I've seen him either. Maybe he's a square peg in a round hole or just being outcompeted for his place by the superstars at that club. Philips though, don't know what happened to him, currently on loan at Ipswich, no idea how he's doing now, but he just fell off a cliff.

[Dragonite]

Immobile

This isn't a popular choice, because most people are just making sort descending by transfer price on transfermarkt or so and they wouldn't find him there, he was a "free transfer".

And yet...

Besiktas couldn't progress from the group stages for over half a decade.

They signed the 2020 European Champion, 2018 Europa League top scorer.

They gave him plenty of playing time, and good conditions for him to succeed.

And he gave them absolutely nothing in return! Zero goals and zero assists, and Besiktas is already eliminated.

[Lorric]

Immobile

This isn't a popular choice, because most people are just making sort descending by transfer price on transfermarkt or so and they wouldn't find him there, he was a "free transfer".

And yet...

Besiktas couldn't progress from the group stages for over half a decade.

They signed the 2020 European Champion, 2018 Europa League top scorer.

They gave him plenty of playing time, and good conditions for him to succeed.

And he gave them absolutely nothing in return! Zero goals and zero assists, and Besiktas is already eliminated.

But he did score 2 goals against Lugano in the qualifier, and he is their top scorer this season with 10 in the league and 14 in all competitions, so no, he is not a transfer flop.

[Dragonite]

1 EUR = 37 TRY