Kepa Arrizabalaga – Chelsea, £72m
Who else? When scouring the market for a new goalkeeper in the summer of 2018, Chelsea narrowed down their search to two leading candiadates; Kepa and Alisson Becker. Whenever they invent time machines, expect Thomas Tuchel to be the first in line.
Kepa’s ill-fated Chelsea career can best be summed up by February’s League Cup final defeat to Liverpool at Wembley.
Brought off the bench in the dying embers of added time in the hope that his penalty-saving penchant would win Chelsea the trophy, Kepa failed to keep out any of Liverpool’s 11 spot kicks before blazing his own over the bar.
Emerson Royal – Tottenham Hotspur, £26m
According to The Telegraph, Barcelona were stunned to learn that Tottenham were willing to pay £26 million for Emerson last summer. They’re not the only ones. Antonio Conte’s 3-5-2 formation puts plenty of onus on his wing-backs to wreak havoc in the final third but Emerson, once he crosses the halfway line, tends to look about as comfortable as an acne-ridden teenager in the middle of a school disco.
The bumbling Brazilian is already in talks to join Atletico Madrid at the end of this season.
Davinson Sanchez – Tottenham Hotspur, £42.5m
There’s only so long a player can rely on ‘potential’ alone. And, at the age of 25, the former Ajax stopper really should have ironed out those rough edges, the lapses in concentration that have infuriated consecutive Spurs bosses.
Sanchez has now fallen behind the all-action Cristian Romero in Tottenham’s pecking order.
Harry Maguire – Manchester United, £80m
What more do we really need to say at this stage? The much-maligned captain of Manchester United, if any player sums up the seemingly never-ending malaise of a club crystallised in quicksand, it’s Harry Maguire.
Who knows where he’d be right now if Manchester City, rather than United, had snatched him from Leicester a couple of years ago?
Vitaliy Mykolenko – Everton, £17m
Now, nobody is writing off Mykolenko just yet. It will take some time for a 22-year-old left-back to adapt to the pressures of the Premier League, especially considering he arrived from a league ranked lower than that of Serbia and Scotland in the FIFA coefficients.
But the fact remains that, for nearly £20 million, Everton seem to have bought a player who cannot hold a candle to his Goodison Park predecessor, Lucas Digne.
Boubakary Soumare – Leicester City, £17m
Another player who, like Mykolenko, could still come good in the Premier League. But the signs don’t look great right now.
Soumare has started just 11 matches since joining Leicester from Ligue 1 champions Lille. And, perhaps even more worryingly, the former PSG youngster appears incapable of striking up an effective partnership with Wilfred Ndidi in Brendan Rodgers’ engine room.
Fred – Manchester United, £52m
Mo Salah. Sadio Mane. Luis Diaz. Ilkay Gundogan. Bernardo Silva. Thiago Alcantara. N’Golo Kante. Mateo Kovacic. These are just some players who cost less than Man United paid to lure Fred to Old Trafford from Shakhtar Donetsk.
One of Erik Ten Hag’s top priorities at Old Trafford must be to find a substantial upgrade for a man who’d struggle to start games for Newcastle, West Ham or Southampton.
Nicolas Pepe – Arsenal, £72m
Arsenal struck a deal with Lille that will see them pay Pepe’s eye-watering transfer fee over a five-year spell. But there is a very real chance that the infuriating Ivorian will no longer be a Gunners player by the time his £72 million fee is paid in full.
Outrageously gifted but oh-so frustrating, Pepe has started just five Premier League matches under Mikel Arteta this season.
Alex Iwobi – Everton, £35m
According to reports, former Everton director Marcel Brands was overruled by Farhad Moshiri prior to Iwobi’s £35 million arrival from Arsenal on deadline day 2019. Perhaps the club’s majority shareholder should have heeded Brands’ advice.
Moshiri has spent over half a billion pounds on new arrivals since taking over at Goodison Park six years ago. And it speaks volumes that Iwobi is not even the worst signing Everton have made in that time.
Nikola Vlasic – West Ham United, £22m
When Vlasic returned to the Premier League from CSKA Moscow last summer, he rocked up at the London Stadium with a point to prove on the back of a forgettable spell at Everton. It’s fair to say few at Goodison will be looking back on their decision to cash in on the Croatia international with much regret as he stumbles through a difficult debut season in claret-and-blue.
Vlasic has one goal and no assists in 18 league games.
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Cenk Tosun – Everton, £27m
Sam Allardyce famously described Tosun as the best pound-for-pound striker you could wish to find when the Turkey international arrived from Besiktas. A claim that has aged about as well as a carton of Cravendale left out in the Istanbul sun.
Tosun has only ever scored nine league goals in Everton colours and will leave on a free when his contract expires in July.
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