Top Ten January Deadline Day Flops

With just two days remaining of the January transfer window, there have been extremely few permanent moves amongst the Premier League clubs – and even fewer that look good value for money.

Perhaps it’s best for clubs to keep their money in their pockets, however – here are ten January signings that proved completely unsuccessful.

10. Alan Hutton (Rangers to Tottenham, £9m, 2008)

It seemed like a reasonable move when Juande Ramos shelled out for the Scottish right-back midway through the season. Hutton had impressed in Scotland’s impressive qualification campaign for Euro 2008, where they nearly toppled World Cup finalists France and Italy, and the move allowed Pascal Chimbonda to move across and plug the gap at left-back.

Things started well for Hutton, winning the League Cup after less than two months at Spurs, but he never truly showed his Rangers form in the Premier League. Harry Redknapp effectively made him an outcast, with Hutton complaining, “He never said anything to me when I left the club. I can’t actually tell you the last time we spoke. It was probably when I heard the words, ‘I don’t want you to train with us any more, I want you to train with the kids’. I just don’t think anyone should be treated like that. For me, Spurs was an unhappy place.”

9. Georgios Samaras (Heerenveen to Manchester City, £6m, 2006)

You can never really tell whether Ededivisie strikers will succeed in the Premier League, and unfortunately Samaras belongs in a category alongside Mateja Kezman and Alfonso Alves, rather than Robin van Persie, Luis Suarez and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Samaras seemed perfect for the English game but struggled to find goals throughout his City career, managing just eight in 54 league games. He was jeered by fans and criticised by his manager Stuart Pearce, who substituted him at half-time in a defeat to Tottenham and complained, “Georgios was disappointing and he will have to learn from it. He will have to learn quickly about the rigours of the English game.”

The Greek striker never adapted to the physical side of the Premier League. On New Year’s Day 2007 Samaras scored twice in a home win over Everton, but, amazingly, Manchester City didn’t score a home goal for the rest of the campaign – and Samaras still didn’t become a regular.

8. Wilson Palacios (Wigan to Tottenham, £9m, 2009)

Another Spurs signing that looked logical on paper – they needed a holding midfielder and the Honduran had impressed at Wigan. But things didn’t work out: Palacios was initially reluctant to move away from the north-west, where his family was settled, and he was then forced to cope with the horror of his younger brother being kidnapped and murdered back in his home country, with Palacios making a televised appeal for his return in the same month he joined Spurs.

It’s understandable if this affected Palacios’ performances. Although he produced a few fine displays, there were other matches where his passing was dreadful – on one occasion he misplaced two simple passes, and the Spurs fans ironically cheered his next completed pass, underlining their lack of faith in him. Spurs recouped much of the transfer fee as Palacios moved to Stoke, but it was an underwhelming transfer.

7. Michel (Sporting Gijon to Birmingham, £3m, 2010)

Not the biggest name on the list, but one of the biggest disappointments. £3m was a significant sum of money for a newly promoted side, and you’d expect Michel to be given a run of games following that outlay.

But the Spanish midfielder started just three times in his first half-season, wasn’t used at all in the subsequent campaign, and was instead loaned out to AEK Athens and then sold to Getafe.

His experience in Birmingham remains something of a mystery.

6. Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea, £50m, 2011)

On paper it seems harsh to describe Torres as a flop considering he’s won FA Cup, European Cup and Europa League medals since his move to Chelsea, and his goalscoring record and all-round game have improved over the last year.

Nevertheless, at times Torres has looked completely lost – drained of confidence and providing very little goal threat. Successive managers were forced to persist with Torres upfront despite the fact Didier Drogba remained a superior striker, and Chelsea tried various approaches to get the best out of the Spaniard, when the truth is that his best days were some years ago.

He’s become a useful player under Mourinho, but the fact remains that he was the sixth-highest transfer of all time, and probably isn’t in Chelsea’s six most important players.

5. Christopher Samba (Anzhi to QPR, £12m, 2013)

An all-round bizarre transfer. Harry Redknapp was talking one day to QPR chairman Tony Fernandes, who asked Redknapp who he thought the best defenders in Europe were. Redknapp gave him four – John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Chris Samba. “That was as far as it went,” remembers Redknapp. “It was only us sitting and having a laugh and talking. Then Tony said to me, ‘I am close to getting one of the defender’… I thought it can’t be Rio or Vidic, and he tells me it’s Samba. That’s how the deal went.”

Samba went straight into the first team, but immediately looked completely off the pace. His worst performance was in a 3-2 defeat to Fulham, where he was responsible for two goals. Fans questioned his £100,000 a week salary, and Samba responded to the abuse on Twitter. “Fed up with the money tweets, get over it,” he said. “I am sorry I let the side down, really upset with my first-half performance. Tell me what is a £100k performance? See everyone talking about mistakes, like footballers cannot have an off-day on the pitch. We are human like all of you. Grow up some of you, please.”

Anzhi took Samba back for nearly as much money as QPR had initially paid, but it sums up the flawed transfer business during QPR’s Premier League spell.

4. Fernando Morientes (Real Madrid to Liverpool, £8m, 2005)

Why did this go wrong? Morientes seemed the ideal fit for Liverpool – he had a great record in Spain, he’d led Monaco to the European Cup final the previous season, and he’d won the European Cup three times. Furthermore, he was the perfect type of striker for English football, and would be working under fellow Spaniard Rafael Benitez.

But Morientes never found form – there was the odd game where he looked dangerous, but he never appeared confident and settled in English football. He was cup-tied for Liverpool’s European Cup win and overshadowed by Djibril Cisse in Liverpool’s Super Cup and FA Cup wins the following season.

After being sold to Valencia he became prolific once again, managing a goal every other game and being recalled to the Spanish national side – it seems life in England simply wasn’t for him.

3. Benni McCarthy (Blackburn to West Ham, £2m.)

Although the transfer fee was undisclosed, estimates of around £2m might not seem particularly shocking in the context of other fees on this list.

Nevertheless, McCarthy’s experience in East London was terrible. He was injured on his debut and out for six weeks, played just 326 minutes of football in his first half-season, and was so unimpressive he was omitted from the 25-man squad for the following campaign. He was eventually given a £1.5m pay-off, having not scored in his 14 appearances for the club.

“Benni McCarthy was a big fat mistake,” said West Ham’s vice-chairman Karren Brady. “We were in desperate haste for a striker to help avoid relegation (again). Rather than the super scorer we hoped for, we acquired a super size, a player devoted to filling his belly more than filling the net. As time went by he grew bigger and bigger and although in time he made a great effort to slim down, he’d passed the waistline of no return.”

When asked for a response, McCarthy rather ungraciously described Brady as “the devil with a set of tits.”

2. Jimmy Bullard (Fulham to Hull City, £5m, 2009)

Bullard had been performing well for Fulham, spreading the play across midfield nicely and developing a reputation for being prolific from long-range free-kicks. However, he had recently turned 30 and was recovering from a serious knee injury – which meant he wasn’t the ideal candidate to become Hull’s record signing.

Bullard picked up another knee injury on his debut, and was out for the remainder of the season. He was never as dynamic as expected following his return, and jeered by supporters who believed his wage demands were part of the reason for the club’s poor financial situation.

Hull attempted to sack him following an unspecified incident at a transfer camp in Slovenia, although eventually settled for loaning and then selling him to Ipswich, as he spent the remainder of his career outside the Premier League. Overall, he cost Hull closer to £10m.

1. Andy Carroll (Newcastle to Liverpool, £35m, 2011)

The strangest thing about this situation is that Liverpool were desperately searching for a replacement for Fernando Torres, who they were about to sell to Chelsea… When they’d already signed Luis Suarez, who would go onto become the Premier League’s most prolific forward.

While Carroll clearly had great potential, the transfer fee never made sense. John W Henry insisted he wanted £15m profit from the sale of Torres and the purchase of Carroll, telling the Guardian that “The negotiation for us was simply the difference in prices paid by Chelsea and to Newcastle… Those prices could have been £35m [from Chelsea for Torres] and £20m [to Newcastle for Carroll], 40 and 25, or 50 and 35. It was ultimately up to Newcastle how much this was all going to cost. They [Newcastle] made a hell of a deal. We felt the same way.”

It was a bizarre calculation, as far removed from Moneyball as one could wish to find. Surely, Henry must have identified a point where it made sense to accept the bid for Torres, but give up on Carroll. That point was reached long before Newcastle demanded £35m, and Carroll became the most expensive Englishman in history.

Liverpool compounded the problem by embarking on a transfer campaign the following summer designed to supply Carroll with aerial balls. Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson cost another £40m combined, with only Henderson still at the club.

Admittedly, Liverpool did well to recoup £15m of the fee for Carroll just two years later – but imagine the position they could be in had they accepted the Torres offer, based their play around Suarez from the off, and not bothered with Carroll.