Onana, Antony, Mustafi: The worst Premier League signing in each of the last 20 transfer windows

Jason Soutar
Premier League flops Angel di Maria, Denis Suarez, Romelu Lukaku and Antony.
Premier League flops Angel di Maria, Denis Suarez, Romelu Lukaku and Antony.

With the winter transfer window open, we have decided to revisit the worst Premier League signings of the last 20 windows.

Updating this list means we lost Danny Graham’s move to Sunderland in January 2013 and Tottenham paying big money to sign Roberto Soldado from Tottenham, a deal that goes down in Premier League history as one of the worst.

If you want to see the best Premier League buys of the last 20 windows, crack on…

 

Winter, 2014 – Kostas Mitroglou (Olympiacos to Fulham, £13m)
Mitroglou became the Cottagers’ record signing in January 2014, spending six horrendous months at Craven Cottage before being loaned back to his former employers in Greece.

He was bad in his three appearances for Fulham and was otherwise injured. He actually joined having scored 14 in 12 in the Greek top flight and three in five in the Champions League. This pedigree was not in evidence whenever he wore the white of Fulham.

 

Summer, 2014 – Angel Di Maria (Real Madrid to Manchester United, £67m)
This window had some really great options. Eliaquim Mangala’s £40m move to Manchester City, Lazar Markovic, Alberto Moreno, Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli joining Liverpool and smaller deals like Jack Rodwell to Sunderland, Brown Ideye to West Brom and Siem de Jong to Newcastle came close to beating Di Maria’s move to Old Trafford.

The Argentina superstar joined Manchester United off the back of a man-of-the-match performance in the Champions League final, but was absolutely hopeless for the Red Devils, scoring four times. At least they only lost around £14m on the player when PSG signed him in 2015.

 

Winter, 2015 – Wilfried Bony (Swansea to Manchester City, £28m)
Bony joined Man City after becoming a fan favourite in Wales, but it simply did not happen for him at one of the title-chasing Premier League clubs.

£28m was probably a fair deal for Swansea, who based a lot of their game around the Ivorian striker. But he was far from as influential for the Cityzens.

Bony scored 11 in 46 for City before Swansea bought him back for around £11m two-and-a-half years after leaving.

 

Summer, 2015 – Memphis Depay (PSV to Manchester United, £30m)
Man Utd spent around £30m each on both Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin, with the Netherlands forward edging his former teammate due to the fact the Red Devils recouped £20m for the Frenchman, as opposed to £14m for Depay.

Perhaps his move to the Premier League came too soon, or maybe he just is not suited to English football. Either way, Depay flopped badly at Old Trafford. He arrived with high hopes after a terrific time at PSV, but could only manage seven goals for United before joining Lyon and becoming one of the best players in France.

 

Winter, 2016 – Oumar Niasse (Lokomotiv Moscow to Everton, £16m)
Currently plying his trade for Macclesfield, Niasse, 33, joined Everton for a pretty hefty fee at the time.

His scoring record of nine in 42 was not as bad as expected, but for those of you who remember Niasse, you’ll know he was really bad.

It is worth mentioning Gianneli Imbula, who flopped in the Premier League for Stoke following a £22m transfer from Porto in the same window.

 

Summer, 2016 – Shkodran Mustafi (Valencia to Arsenal, £35m)
Mustafi joined Arsenal for a whopping £35m and started pretty well in north London, losing his first match at the 20th attempt, despite probably doing his best to make it happen sooner.

The World Cup-winning defender was error-prone, weak and overall a liability under Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery and was a very easy choice in a summer that involved deals like Yannick Bolasie to Everton (£26m) and Islam Slimani to Leicester (£28m).

 

Winter, 2017 – Saido Berahino (West Brom to Stoke, £13m)
Berahino looked a very good prospect during his time at The Hawthorns, even netting 10 times in 11 matches for England Under-21s, earning (we use the word loosely) a move to Stoke.

He scored five goals for the Potters across two-and-a-half seasons before moving to Belgium to play for RSC Charleroi.

The 30-year-old is now playing for AEL Limassol in Cyprus. Anyone else think Berahino being 30 feels quite weird?

 

Summer, 2017 – Danny Drinkwater (Leicester to Chelsea, £34m)
What a window this was. Chelsea signed Drinkwater, Alvaro Morata and Tiemoue Bakayoko, and Everton spent £27m on Davy Klaassen. But Drinkwater’s move from Leicester to Stamford Bridge was an easy choice.

The midfielder opened up on his career post-Leicester, labelling it a “shambles” in a fair piece of analysis.

The 33-year-old announced his retirement last October.

 

Winter, 2018 – Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal to Manchester United, swap deal)
Alexis’ best performance in a Man Utd shirt was during his video announcement, playing the piano beautifully. That says all you need to know.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan – who joined Arsenal in this deal – didn’t have the best of times in London, if that makes Alexis feel any better, which it shouldn’t.

READ MORE: Ten worst January transfers ranked: Only one deal worse than Man Utd/Arsenal swap

 

Summer, 2018 – Kepa (Athletic Bilbao to Chelsea, £72m)
You can spin this one however you like, but Chelsea splashing out over £70m on Kepa – breaking the transfer record for a goalkeeper in the process – has turned out to be a horrendous piece of business

Frank Lampard brought in Edouard Mendy after several costly errors from the Spaniard, who earned a starting place back last term after Mendy forgot how to play football.

Kepa ‘beats’ some questionable Premier League deals in this window, such as Fred’s £53m transfer from Shakhtar Donetsk to Manchester United and Jean Michael Seri’s £27m move to Fulham.

 

Winter, 2019 – Denis Suarez (Barcelona to Arsenal, loan)
After the Gunners brought in Kim Kallstrom on loan in 13/14, paying over £600k for the midfielder who played 135 minutes in total, in January 2019 they thought to themselves: ‘Let’s do that again!’.

Arsenal paid over £2m to loan Denis Suarez, who played more than 20 minutes of a match in just one of his six appearances for the Londoners. What a colossal waste of time for the club and player.

READ MORE: Arsenal pair and Liverpool’s emergency striker among seven utterly pointless January loans

 

Summer, 2019 – Tanguy Ndombele (Lyon to Tottenham, £52m)
This was a summer full of terrible deals, but the worst was Ndombele’s record-breaking move to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The French midfielder actually hit the ground running in England but ended up becoming a liability before being shipped on loan back to Lyon in January 2022, to Napoli the following summer, and Galatasaray last September.

Elsewhere this window, United spent a combined £130m on Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Harry Maguire, Arsenal and West Ham also obliterated their transfer records on Nicolas Pepe and Sebastian Haller, respectively.

 

Winter, 2020 – Ally Samatta (Genk to Aston Villa, £10m)
This window has a few lacklustre deals, but none were absolutely woeful. Samatta falls into this category as he was pretty rubbish in the Premier League, but he didn’t put a huge dent into Villa’s transfer kitty.

The striker netted twice for the Villans, including a superb header against Man City in the Carabao Cup final defeat in 2020.

Samatta spent half a season at Villa Park, scoring six in 30 for Fenerbahce during a loan spell, which was enough for them to want the Tanzania captain on a permanent basis. It’s a funny old game…

 

Summer, 2020 – Rhian Brewster (Liverpool to Sheff Utd, £23m)
The summer windows are always stacked with rubbish buys. In 2020 Chelsea bought Timo Werner, Everton signed James Rodriguez on a free transfer and Donny van de Beek signed for Man United to rot away on the bench.

Brewster’s £23m move from Liverpool to Sheffield United was an easy choice, however. The young striker has scored five times in 71 matches for the Blades and his legacy at the club has already been eclipsed by Cameron Archer.

 

Winter, 2021 – Morgan Sanson (Marseille to Aston Villa, £13.9m)
You can be forgiven for forgetting this guy exists.

 

Summer, 2021 – Romelu Lukaku (Inter Milan to Chelsea, £97.5m)
The 2021 summer window had some rotten deals. Jadon Sancho was chosen when initially writing this article in January 2022 but even his drama this season has not been enough to see him overtake Lukaku.

Lukaku joined the Blues for close to £100m, scored a few goals, decided to make it clear he wanted to leave, played rubbish, then re-joined Inter Milan on loan and then joined Roma for 2023/24. What a disaster.

 

Winter, 2022 – Philippe Coutinho (Barcelona to Aston Villa, £17.6m)
There were a couple of stinkers, and quite a lot of good signings, believe it or not. It was a tough choice between Coutinho, Dele Alli (Spurs to Everton), Chris Wood (Burnley to Newcastle), and Anwar El Ghazi (Aston Villa to Everton). We have opted for Coutinho, who joined with football fans in England expecting big things, but the Brazilian flopped massively.

The Villans paid just short of £20m for Coutinho – who is currently on loan at Al Duhail in Qatar. In 43 appearances for the Villans, he registered six goals and three assists. He has surely played his last game for them.

 

Summer, 2022 – Antony (Ajax to Manchester United, £85.5m)
Antony has replaced Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella as the worst signing of the 2022 summer transfer window. For around £85m, he has been an absolute disaster. What makes it even worse is the fact Erik ten Hag could have signed him for half the price earlier in the window.

Zero goal contributions this season is a woeful return for a player who did close to nothing in 22/23. He has time to turn things around, but if Ten Hag is sacked, he is surely doomed.

READ: Antony and Man Utd escapee join Chelsea pair in top 10 market value decreases this season

 

Winter, 2023 – Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid to Chelsea, £9.7m loan fee)
After going crazy in the summer before, Chelsea continued their eyebrow-raising spending which helped contribute to their worst season in the 21st century.

Mykhaylo Mudryk is struggling to live up to his £62m price tag and if you think he is the worst signing of this window, that is more than fair, but the signing of Felix was utterly pointless, and for around £500k per underwhelming appearance…we are still scratching our head at this one.

Another awful loan deal in this window was Weston McKennie’s move to relegated Leeds United, made all the more horrendous by the American’s fine form for Serie A title-chasers Juventus this season.

 

Summer 2023 – Andre Onana (Inter to Manchester United, £47m)
Kai Havertz was probably the easy choice here. With Arsenal in dire need of funds to sign a striker, this looks even more foolish, but there has been a worse signing.

Havertz cost the Gunners £60m, Burnley invested a lot of money on a lot of rubbish, Chelsea were once again erratic, Newcastle’s £52m midfielder got suspended for nearly a whole year, and Manchester United made a few questionable signings, but it is one of Ten Hag’s favourites who we think is the worst signing of the 2023 summer transfer window.

Andre Onana has been catastrophic and despite his deceiving six clean sheets in the Premier League this term, he hasn’t won the Red Devils any points on his own. He was also abysmal in the Champions League and gave a struggling United side no chance of getting out of their group.