Wissa, Antony, Mustafi: The worst Premier League signing in each of the last 25 transfer windows | OneFootball

There have been some truly honking Premier League transfers over the years.

From Kostas Mitroglou to Fulham 12 years ago to a West Ham buy in January 2026, we bring you the worst Premier League signing in each of the last 25 transfer windows.

If you want to see the best Premier League buys of the last 25 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.

Over to Steve Sidwell for more details: “In January, relegation battle, we needed a striker. So they went and got Kostas Mitroglou, I think his name was.

“This f***er, he did not stop eating. Honesty, he did, I’m telling you now, he did not stop eating.

“He was a big boy. And you know the protein bars, every time you’d see him, he’d be walking around the training ground with a f***ing protein bar.”

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. “He was never interested from day one,” said Gary Neville years later.

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 the title-chasing Premier League club.

£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 later.

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)

Now retired after playing for Macclesfield, Niasse, 35, 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 very bad.

It is worth mentioning Giannelli 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 West Brom, 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 32-year-old is currently a free agent after spells in Cyprus, India and Slovenia.

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 the easy choice.

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

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.

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.

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 – was a horrendous piece of business.

Frank Lampard brought in Edouard Mendy after several costly errors from the Spaniard and the upgrade was instantly evident.

Kepa ‘beats’ some questionable Premier League deals in this window, such as 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.

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 back on loan to Lyon in January 2022, to Napoli the following summer, and Galatasaray in 2023 before eventually joining Nice on a free transfer in 2024.

Elsewhere this window, the Red Devils 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 had 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 and scored six in 30 for Fenerbahce during a loan spell, which was enough for them to sign the Tanzanian on a permanent basis.

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 Utd to rot away on the bench.

Brewster’s £23m move from Liverpool to Sheffield United was an easy choice, however. The 26-year-old striker scored nine times in 119 matches for the Blades and now plays for Derby County.

Winter, 2021 – Morgan Sanson (Marseille to Aston Villa, £13.9m)

You can be forgiven for forgetting this guy exists.

Summer, 2021 – Romelu Lukaku (Inter to Chelsea, £97.5m)

The 2021 summer window had some rotten deals. Jadon Sancho was chosen when this feature was born in January 2022 but Lukaku’s move has somehow aged worse.

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 on loan.

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. In 43 appearances for the Villans, he registered six goals and three assists.

Summer, 2022 – Antony (Ajax to Manchester United, £85.5m)

For around £85m, Antony was 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. Plus, he is clearly a good player, doing very well at Real Betis.

Winter, 2023 – Mykhaylo Mudryk (Shakhtar to Chelsea, £62m)

Still suspended for taking performance-enhancing drugs, Mudryk didn’t exactly look like a man on PEDs before. His inclusion might be the easiest choice of the lot.

Summer, 2023 – Andre Onana (Inter to Manchester United, £47m)

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 goes down as the worst signing of the 2023 summer transfer window.

Onana was catastrophic. He single-handedly got United knocked out of the Champions League and made mistake after mistake before being replaced by Senne Lammens last summer.

Winter, 2024 – Kalvin Phillips (Manchester City to West Ham, loan)

This was a painfully quiet transfer window, which means we are painfully short of options. Radu Dragusin’s £25m move to Spurs was a contender but Phillips’ West Ham loan was the outstanding candidate.

This was supposed to be the perfect move for Phillips to play regularly and ensure he remained in Gareth Southgate’s plans ahead of Euro 2024, but it was an absolute disaster for everyone involved. He actually started playing club football and stopped getting picked for England.

From telling the West Ham fans to f**k off to committing an error leading to a goal three minutes into his debut, this was the beginning of the end for Phillips.

Summer, 2024 – Odysseas Vlachodimos (Nottingham Forest to Newcastle, £20m)

Phillips’ Ipswich loan was another surprisingly disappointing transfer, but there were far worse deals in the 2024 summer transfer window.

This window really kicked off the age of dodgy PSR deals and while Joao Felix for £42m and Max Kilman for £40m were shockers, it’s impossible to look beyond Odysseas’ move to Newcastle.

Signed in an attempt to avoid financial punishment and nothing else, the Greek goalkeeper was essentially a pawn in Elliot Anderson’s £35m move to the City Ground, which has turned out to be a colossal mistake from Newcastle.

Odysseas is a decent goalkeeper but he only played 45 competitive minutes for the Magpies. His £20m book-balancing fee means Newcastle only valued now-£100m midfielder Anderson at £15m. Good process, boys.

Winter, 2025 – Mathis Amougou (Saint-Etienne to Chelsea, £12m)

Slim pickings in another quiet January window, with Manchester City spending big but not on any obvious misses. £50m for Nico Gonzalez hasn’t aged tremendously, but he’s not worthy of being here.

If Odysseas symbolised the start of the PSR era, Amougou can symbolise the ongoing Chelsea-being-ridiculous era, otherwise known as the Todd Boehly, Clearlake era.

Signed for £12m from Saint-Etienne, Amougou played 22 minutes before being sold to sister club Strasbourg a little less than five months later.

Summer, 2025 – Yoane Wissa (Brentford to Newcastle, £55m)

This can easily change in the near future as 2025/26 is not finished, but as things stand, it’s difficult to look beyond Wissa.

There are plenty of contenders, mind. Liverpool obviously broke their transfer record twice on Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, but the former hasn’t been that bad and Isak broke his leg whilst scoring a potentially momentum-shifting goal.

You also have Harvey Elliott’s disastrous Aston Villa loan, Jamie Gittens for £48.5m, Nick Woltemade for £73m, and a few Nottingham Forest signings.

Wissa’s move to Newcastle was always going to be a risk considering he turned 29 last September, and he has arguably not been worse than £55m Anthony Elanga, but it’s already clear that there are major regrets over this one, while Elanga at least has age on his side.

Winter, 2026 – Pablo (Gil Vicente to West Ham, £20m)

This was a window full of loan recalls, so in terms of a lack of instant impact, we’ve gone for £20m Pablo, who has zero goals in nine appearances for West Ham at the time of writing.