It's always an exciting time for fans when a club breaks its transfer
record. Manchester City appear to have got it right twice over the
summer in the shape of Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne, but a lot of
the time it can also go spectacularly wrong.
8. Darren Bent (£18m to Aston Villa)
Darren
Bent actually made a reasonably good start to life at Aston Villa after
they broke their club record to buy him from Sunderland in January 2011
- a fee of £18m rising to £24m. However, his goalscoring quickly tailed
off thereafter and it was only in 2015 that he finally left the club
after being released, meaning Villa lost every penny.
7. Kostas Mitroglou (£12.4m to Fulham)
A fine record with Olympiacos in Greece didn't translate to English
football at all for Kostas Mitroglou after his £12m move to Fulham in
January 2014. The powerful forward had rather oddly given up Champions
League football for a relegation scrap. He only played three games
before returning to Olympiacos on loan.
6. Savio Nsereko (£9m to West Ham United)
Unless West Ham fans had been following Italian football in great
detail prior to Savio Nsereko's club record £9m move from Brescia in
January 2009, most wouldn't have had a clue who the striker even was.
After no goals, 'Savio' left just a few months later for a big loss and
has played for 12 different clubs since. Madly, he's still only 26.
5. Michael Owen (£16.8m to Newcastle United)
Newcastle exceeded the £15m they'd paid to land Alan Shearer when
Michael Owen arrived at St James' Park in the summer of 2005 after year
with Real Madrid. A string of injuries kept the former teen sensation
from ever recapturing his best form in black and white, leaving many to
wonder what might have been.
4. Roberto Soldado (£26m to Tottenham Hotspur)
Erik
Lamela's arrival soon afterwards meant that Roberto Soldado was only
Tottenham's club record buy for a matter of weeks in the summer of 2013,
but he was still a huge flop. The Spanish striker never found his feet
in England and left after only two seasons and just seven league goals.
3. Fernando Torres (£50m to Chelsea)
The Fernando Torres that Chelsea paid £50m for in January 2011, setting a
new British record in the process, was simply not the same player that
had lit up the Premier League for Liverpool in the preceding years.
Injuries had already started to take their toll on the Spaniard and he
never recovered.
2. Andy Carroll (£35m to Liverpool)
On
the same day that Liverpool received £50m for Torres, they blew £35m on
Andy Carroll, a record for an English player at the time. The
Gateshead-born striker had barely any Premier League experience to his
name and the Reds paid way over the odds. Carroll struggled, hampered
further by injuries, and was sold on for a £20m loss.
1. Angel Di Maria (£59.6m to Manchester United)
Just months earlier the Argentine winger was named Man of the Match in the Champions League final, but things didn't work out in a United shirt. After initially flourishing Di Maria simply failed to adapt and an unsettling burglary at his house marked the beginning of the end.
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