Home
10) Nicky Shorey (£2.5m to Aston Villa)
To be fair there are a few candidates for this list in the Villa squad as Steve Sidwell and Carlos Cuellar have hardly set the Premier League alight for their combined £12.8m, but we at F365 have been particularly amused by Shorey's move to Villa to provide cover and competition for the injured Wilfred Bouma. He was so underwhelming in the role that the manager preferred to play two players out of position (including Luke Young on the left) rather than call on the former England international. He's back in the side now, but we don't think Bouma will be too worried.
9) Fabricio Coloccini (£10.3m to Newcastle)
Hands up who thinks that the player who was given an absolute (if we were Alan Pardew we would say something different here) shoeing by Liverpool in a five-goal mauling in December, or was made to look like an amateur by Chelsea earlier this month, was a sensible £10m-plus investment. Nobody? Not even Dennis Wise? The Argentine has been rescued time and time again by the inexpensive Sebastien Bassong all season and undoubtedly he will slope off back to Spain in the summer as Newcastle prepare for a season in the Championship.
Borja Valero (£4.7m to West Brom)
A promoted club obviously has limited funds so that money has to be spent wisely and sensibly, usually on experienced campaigners. Unless you're West Brom, of course, who broke their transfer record to spend £4.7m on a relatively unknown 23-year-old Spaniard who had plied his trade exclusively for Real Mallorca. Unsurprisingly, it has not gone brilliantly well and Valero was last seen being urged by Jonathan Greening to stay and learn his trade in the Championship. How well do we think that suggestion will go down?
7) Robbie Keane (£20m to Liverpool)
Keane would be higher up this list had Liverpool not recouped a good whack of that money already, but the Anfield club still paid around a £1m a month to have Keane in their ranks for half a season. We haven't got space here to go into the whys and wherefores of the deal (did Rafa ever want him? Did he ever get a real chance?) but the upshot is that Liverpool paid £20m for a striker who did not deliver, and that makes him a shoo-in for this list.
6) Dave Kitson (£5.5m to Stoke City)
"I hold my hands up - it was my fault. I made the decision to go to Stoke, I didn't have to, no-one forced me to go, and it was a bad decision," sayd Kitson, who ended the season back at Reading on loan with no goals and a new nickname (Dave S***son) the only thing he had to show for his sojourn in Stoke. It had been a disaster for both club and player, though Tony Pulis more than made up for his mistake when he spent less than half the that club-record amount to sign James Beattie - a striker far, far better suited to Stoke's style.
5) Andrea Dossena (£7m to Liverpool)
Apart from bringing him off the bench during a rout to score a cracking goal in a 'look how bad you are, even Dossena can score against you' stylee, it's difficult to see what value Dossena brings to Liverpool for his £7m. Just like the majority of the F365 editorial staff, the Italian looks 'prone to fat' and has struggled with any semblance of pace. Rafa Benitez may be a master tactician, but paying £7m for a third-choice left-back proves that there are still things he needs to learn.
4) Deco (£8m to Chelsea)
Hands up, we were among the media bods saying back in September that Deco might well be the missing piece in the Chelsea jigsaw after he set off at a canter for the Blues. We should have listened to followers of his career in Spain who warned that he would soon lose interest and the old, lazy attitude would return. Fast-forward a few months and the Portugeezer is just a bit-part player - his last 'bit' was his cameo off the bench when Bolton almost came back from a 4-0 deficit - and he's quite likely to be moved on again in the summer. Probably not for £8m, mind.
3) Jimmy Bullard (£5m to Hull)
As a statement of intent and a PR exercise, it's easy to see Hull's logic in doling out big money on one of England's favourite footballers. But spending £5m on a 30-year-old player - with reported £45,000-a-week wages over a massive four-and-a-half year deal to boot - with a history of knee problems looks frankly a bit mental. Ths sum total of his efforts for Hull so far? 38 minutes of football in a battle for survival that the Tigers could very well lose.
2) Jo (£19m to Manchester City)
If we'd done this list back in January, we might have speculated that Jo was unsuited to Premier League football. We might have lumped him in with Afonso Alves as the most recent examples of Brazilian strikers who fail to adapt to English football. But David Moyes would have made us look as foolish as Mark Hughes, who failed to coax more than one goal out of a player who has already scored five for the Toffees. Manchester City's owners may not care a jot about the money - after all he only cost about a tenth of a Kaka - but they probably care that their manager looks a tad daft.
1) David Bentley (£15m to Tottenham)
Oh lordy, where did it all go wrong? The move to Spurs was supposed to cement his place as England's first-choice right-winger, and instead the only team he's guaranteed to play for is Tottenham's reserve side. To be fair, he's clearly found his level because he's been in fine scoring fettle for the stiffs, but that's probably not what Daniel Levy had in mind when he signed a cheque for a massive £15m last summer. Harry Redknapp said back in January that if "we can get him going we can have a terrific player again". As he's since played 19 minutes of Premier League football, we assume that 'Arry's plan has backfired somewhat.
To be fair there are a few candidates for this list in the Villa squad as Steve Sidwell and Carlos Cuellar have hardly set the Premier League alight for their combined £12.8m, but we at F365 have been particularly amused by Shorey's move to Villa to provide cover and competition for the injured Wilfred Bouma. He was so underwhelming in the role that the manager preferred to play two players out of position (including Luke Young on the left) rather than call on the former England international. He's back in the side now, but we don't think Bouma will be too worried.
9) Fabricio Coloccini (£10.3m to Newcastle)
Hands up who thinks that the player who was given an absolute (if we were Alan Pardew we would say something different here) shoeing by Liverpool in a five-goal mauling in December, or was made to look like an amateur by Chelsea earlier this month, was a sensible £10m-plus investment. Nobody? Not even Dennis Wise? The Argentine has been rescued time and time again by the inexpensive Sebastien Bassong all season and undoubtedly he will slope off back to Spain in the summer as Newcastle prepare for a season in the Championship.
Borja Valero (£4.7m to West Brom)A promoted club obviously has limited funds so that money has to be spent wisely and sensibly, usually on experienced campaigners. Unless you're West Brom, of course, who broke their transfer record to spend £4.7m on a relatively unknown 23-year-old Spaniard who had plied his trade exclusively for Real Mallorca. Unsurprisingly, it has not gone brilliantly well and Valero was last seen being urged by Jonathan Greening to stay and learn his trade in the Championship. How well do we think that suggestion will go down?
7) Robbie Keane (£20m to Liverpool)
Keane would be higher up this list had Liverpool not recouped a good whack of that money already, but the Anfield club still paid around a £1m a month to have Keane in their ranks for half a season. We haven't got space here to go into the whys and wherefores of the deal (did Rafa ever want him? Did he ever get a real chance?) but the upshot is that Liverpool paid £20m for a striker who did not deliver, and that makes him a shoo-in for this list.
6) Dave Kitson (£5.5m to Stoke City)
"I hold my hands up - it was my fault. I made the decision to go to Stoke, I didn't have to, no-one forced me to go, and it was a bad decision," sayd Kitson, who ended the season back at Reading on loan with no goals and a new nickname (Dave S***son) the only thing he had to show for his sojourn in Stoke. It had been a disaster for both club and player, though Tony Pulis more than made up for his mistake when he spent less than half the that club-record amount to sign James Beattie - a striker far, far better suited to Stoke's style.
5) Andrea Dossena (£7m to Liverpool)
Apart from bringing him off the bench during a rout to score a cracking goal in a 'look how bad you are, even Dossena can score against you' stylee, it's difficult to see what value Dossena brings to Liverpool for his £7m. Just like the majority of the F365 editorial staff, the Italian looks 'prone to fat' and has struggled with any semblance of pace. Rafa Benitez may be a master tactician, but paying £7m for a third-choice left-back proves that there are still things he needs to learn.
4) Deco (£8m to Chelsea)
Hands up, we were among the media bods saying back in September that Deco might well be the missing piece in the Chelsea jigsaw after he set off at a canter for the Blues. We should have listened to followers of his career in Spain who warned that he would soon lose interest and the old, lazy attitude would return. Fast-forward a few months and the Portugeezer is just a bit-part player - his last 'bit' was his cameo off the bench when Bolton almost came back from a 4-0 deficit - and he's quite likely to be moved on again in the summer. Probably not for £8m, mind.
3) Jimmy Bullard (£5m to Hull)
As a statement of intent and a PR exercise, it's easy to see Hull's logic in doling out big money on one of England's favourite footballers. But spending £5m on a 30-year-old player - with reported £45,000-a-week wages over a massive four-and-a-half year deal to boot - with a history of knee problems looks frankly a bit mental. Ths sum total of his efforts for Hull so far? 38 minutes of football in a battle for survival that the Tigers could very well lose.
2) Jo (£19m to Manchester City)
If we'd done this list back in January, we might have speculated that Jo was unsuited to Premier League football. We might have lumped him in with Afonso Alves as the most recent examples of Brazilian strikers who fail to adapt to English football. But David Moyes would have made us look as foolish as Mark Hughes, who failed to coax more than one goal out of a player who has already scored five for the Toffees. Manchester City's owners may not care a jot about the money - after all he only cost about a tenth of a Kaka - but they probably care that their manager looks a tad daft.
1) David Bentley (£15m to Tottenham)
Oh lordy, where did it all go wrong? The move to Spurs was supposed to cement his place as England's first-choice right-winger, and instead the only team he's guaranteed to play for is Tottenham's reserve side. To be fair, he's clearly found his level because he's been in fine scoring fettle for the stiffs, but that's probably not what Daniel Levy had in mind when he signed a cheque for a massive £15m last summer. Harry Redknapp said back in January that if "we can get him going we can have a terrific player again". As he's since played 19 minutes of Premier League football, we assume that 'Arry's plan has backfired somewhat.
