1. Eric Djemba-Djemba (Nantes to Manchester United £3.5m, 2003)“In the last few months he has shown his development playing in a very good Cameroon team, and he looks like a Manchester United player in every sense,” Sir Alex Ferguson told expectant reporters after purchasing midfielder Djemba-Djemba from Nantes in the middle of the 2002/03 campaign. Unfortunately for the Scot, his new man turned out to be nothing of the sort: 13 Premier League starts later, the heir to Roy Keane was sold to Aston Villa for £1.5m. Now 36, he can be found in Switzerland's fifth tier withFC Vallorbe-Ballaigues.2. Jean-Alain Boumsong (Rangers to Newcastle £8m, 2005)This was a strange signing on many levels, with Newcastle paying Rangers £8m for Boumsong’s services just a few months after he’d been available on a free.The 27-time France international actually started his career at St James’ Park well, before basic defensive errors began to creep into his game and adversely affect Newcastle’s results. Juventus, having been relegated to Serie B just a few months previously, took Boumsong off the Magpies’ hands in August 2006 – though he never featured in Serie A once the Old Lady made it back. 3. Afonso Alves (Heerenveen to Middlesbrough £12.5m, 2008)Tottenham fans are well aware of the pitfalls associated with signing strikers from the Eredivisie, with Vincent Janssen having joined amuch-maligned listthat includes Jozy Altidore, Siem de Jong and Mateja Kezman rather than Luis Suarez, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robin van Persie.Afonso Alves was another member of the former group: despite finding the net six times in his first 11 Premier League appearances, the Brazilian quickly faded and was sold to Al-Sadd following Boro’s relegation in 2009.4. Savio Nsereko (Brescia to West Ham £9m, 2009)Now 28, Savio’s last four clubs have been Atyrau (Kazakhstan), Lietava Jonava (Lithuania), Beroe Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) and Pipinsried(Germany), which probably says more about his true level of ability than 2009’s £9m move to West Ham– easily one of the most bizarre transfers in Premier League history.The Irons handed the former Germany U20 international their No.10 shirt at Upton Park, but he failed to live up to expectations and made just a single Premier League start (he appeared in nine other games from the bench) before being shipped off to Fiorentina seven months later.READ THIS 16 of the weirdest transfers in English football history5. Benni McCarthy (Blackburn to West Ham £2.25m, 2010)Another disappointing winter acquisition for the Hammers. McCarthy arrived in east London in pretty poor form, with 14 top-flight outings for Blackburn in the first half of the season having yielded just one goal.Gianfranco Zola’s side were in desperate need of some additional firepower as they attempted to pull themselves clear of the relegation zone, but the South African wasn’t the man to provide it: after 14 appearances and zero goals in all competitions, McCarthy left the club with a £1.5m pay-off in April 2011.6. Jean Makoun (Lyon to Aston Villa £6.2m, 2011)“I've left a very good club in Lyon, a side which has played Champions League football, but I’m very excited by this new challenge at Aston Villa,” Makoun said after his move to England six years ago.He probably regretted his decision after just a couple of weeks: the midfielder was stunned to learn that a red card in his fourth Premier League appearance against Blackpool brought with it a three-game suspension, and his Villa career came to a premature end after subsequent showings against Wolves, Everton, Newcastle and Hereford. Just the£564,000 per appearance, then (and that's not even including his wages).7. Fernando Torres (Chelsea to Liverpool £50m, 2011) and Andy Carroll (Newcastle to Liverpool £35m, 2011)There were already signs that Torres was on the wane when he swapped Anfield for Stamford Bridge at the start of 2011, but Chelsea learned the hard way; £50m bought just 20 Premier League goals across three-and-half seasons, and gave Liverpool fans the chance to gloat.Or at least it would have done had the Reds not spent most of the proceeds on Andy Carroll, who managed 11 goals in 58 appearances and looked entirely unsuited to the Reds’ style of play throughout his miserable 18 months on Merseyside. Not that it stopped Brendan Rodgers from signing Mario Balotelli three-and-a-half years later.8. Chris Samba (Anzhi Makhachkala to QPR £12.5m, 2013)Harry Redknapp considered Samba the perfect man to shore up Rangers’ leaky backline in 2012/13, talking him up as a “proper centre-half” and “just what we need” after a £12.5m deal (on £100,000 per week wages, obviously) was sewn up on deadline day.Things didn’t work out as planned, though, for manager, club or player: Redknapp resigned days later, QPR were later relegated and Samba –who told fans to "get over" the fact he was paid so much at Loftus Road –was forced to go crawling back to Anzhi in the summer.9. Kostas Mitroglou (Olympiakos to Fulham £12.4m, 2014)There’s putting all of your eggs in one basket, and then there’s Fulham signing Mitroglou for a club-record fee in January 2014. Granted, the Cottagers did also bring in Johnny Heitinga and Lewis Holtby on deadline day, but Olympiakos’s prolific marksman was identified as the player who could score the goals to keep Rene Meulensteen’s men in the Premier League.Except he couldn’t. Unfancied by Meulensteen’s successor Felix Magath, Mitroglou started just one game in English football as the Cottagers fell through the top-flight trapdoor.10. Juan Cuadrado (Fiorentina to Chelsea £23.3m, 2015)Cuadrado looked like an astute addition in 2015, but the Colombia international was never able to replicate his exhilarating Serie A displays in the Premier League.That he found game time hard to come by clearly didn’t aid his efforts to hit the ground running, but the former Fiorentina man still didn’t do enough in his occasional appearances to earn an extended stay at Stamford Bridge. After two years on loan at Juventus, he finally signed permanently for the Old Lady in summer 2017 for €20m. 11. Robert Snodgrass(Hull to West Ham £10.2m, 2017)Yes, West Ham have a bit of history in this department. Snodgrass was fought over in January 2017 after scoring seven times for lowly Hull in the first half of the season, but the Scot eventually chose east London over Burnley and Boro.This one was doomed from the beginning, however. Snodgrass was all too happy to stick the boot into former bossSlaven Bilic after the Croatian was sacked in November 2017,grumbling upon joining Aston Villa on loan: "I was coming on against Man City and he said ‘Where do you want to play, on the left or right?’ I thought, ‘You've just signed me and I've played on the right or behind the striker at Hull all season’.That was my debut and alarm bells were ringing right away. I found it very strange and I realised from the off that it wasn’t going to happen."West Ham’s vice-chairman Karren Brady recently echoed the midfielder's thoughts. "Robert Snodgrass wasn’t exactly a triumph," she said, after 15 appearances and no goals.New features you'd love on FourFourTwo.com
