Renato Sanches features: Swansea City's 5 biggest transfer flop signings from recent times | OneFootball

We take a look at some of the disastrous signings Swansea City have made in recent times

Swansea City enjoyed what looks to have been a decent 2024 summer transfer window, but the coming months will tell us whether the players that Luke Williams has signed are up to the required standard.

No club signs a player knowing they're going to be a failure, but it's fair to say that Swansea have had a number of signings in recent times which failed to live up to expectations, particularly in their days as a Premier League club.

The Swans were probably guilty of throwing money at panic signings during their latter years as a top-flight club, with money being spent on substandard players as the club looked to remain in the Premier League.

Swansea's financial situation since being relegated in 2018 means they've had to be shrewder in their recruitment, and it's largely been successful, despite the odd flop here and there.

With that in mind, here are Swansea City's 5 biggest transfer flops from recent times.

Jose Moreira

Following their promotion to the Premier League in 2011, Swansea's first choice goalkeeper, Dorus De Vries, departed, and they were on the lookout for a new number one.

It looked as if they had found their man when they signed Portugal international Jose Moreira from Benfica, with the experienced shotstopper having played 148 games for the Portuguese giants.

However, Swansea also signed Gerhard Tremmel and Michel Vorm that summer, and the pair quickly became the club's first and second choice goalkeepers, with Moreira showing that he wasn't good enough.

His time at Swansea got off to an awful start, starting in a 3-1 loss to Shrewsbury in the League Cup, his only first-team appearance, before conceding six against Manchester United in a reserve team game a couple of days later.

After making just one appearance, he left the club in the summer of 2012 and joined AC Omonia - a poor move all round.

David N'Gog

One of the more puzzling signings that Swansea made in recent times, the club moved to sign ex-Liverpool striker David N'Gog from Bolton Wanderers in January 2014.

N'Gog hadn't been overly impressive with Bolton in the second tier, so it appeared a strange move for a Premier League club to sign him, and so it proved.

Swansea had the likes of Wilfried Bony, Michu, Alvaro Vazquez and Marvin Emnes on their books at the time, but needed a big squad to deal with battling for Premier League survival and competing in the Europa League knock-out stages, but signing N'Gog was still a puzzling move.

He made just three appearances, all from the bench where he failed to score, before leaving upon the expiration of his short-term contract in the summer of 2014 in what proved to be a completely pointless move.

Franck Tabanou

French defender Franck Tabanou signed for Swansea City from Saint-Étienne in the summer of 2015, but his time in SA1 was a miserable one.

The former France U21 international was unfit and not up to Premier League standard, and made just three appearances for the club, all of which came in the cup competitions.

His final act for Swansea came in January 2016 when he started in an embarrassing 3-2 loss to League Two side Oxford United in the FA Cup, and the Swans' management had seen enough from the left-back after that.

He would re-join Saint-Étienne on loan later that month, before spending the 2016/17 season on loan at Granada. He was released in the summer of 2017 and returned to his homeland with Guingamp, bringing down the curtain on his disastrous spell in south Wales.

Portuguese striker Eder joined the club from SC Braga in the summer of 2015, and came with a decent reputation as a full Portugal international and having scored 14 goals during the previous campaign for Braga.

Swansea forked out £5million for the big striker, and he was brought in to compete with Bafetimbi Gomis and Andre Ayew for a place in the club's starting XI.

However, he was unable to break into Garry Monk's squad, and he played 13 games in total, just two of those being Premier League starts, and failed to find the back of the net.

He subsequently joined Lille on loan in January 2016, before joining the French side on a permanent basis the following summer.

Incredibly, Eder would go on to score the winning goal for Portugal in the Euro 2016 final despite his woes at Swansea during the 15/16 campaign, a fact that still puzzles Swansea fans to this day.

Renato Sanches

He may have only signed for Swansea on a season-long loan, but Renato Sanches will always be remembered as one of the club's worst signings.

It looked an incredible coup for the club when they signed the youngster on loan from Bayern Munich, just a year after helping Portugal to Euro 2016 success and winning the Young Player of the Tournament award, and he won't be forgotten by the Jack Army, but for all the wrong reasons.

His time at the club was an unmitigated disaster, and he looked like a shadow of the player who had played so well for Portugal the previous summer.

His debut set the tone for a dreadful loan spell, as he gave the ball away 23 times in his 69 minutes on the pitch against Newcastle United, and he never really recovered from that.

In total, he made 15 appearances, being on the winning side just twice as Swansea suffered relegation, and Sanches' lasting legacy in south Wales is the infamous incident where he passed the ball to an advertising hoarding instead of his teammate.