10 Premier League players that fans were happy to see leave their club

Some transfers just don’t work out. Call it the law of averages, but not everyone can be a success story. Players arrive at a new club amidst a barrage of excitement, fanfare and expectation and fans expect results right away, particularly if the player has come with a large price tag attached or is receiving a hefty wage packet.If they don’t hit the ground running, they can find themselves being swiftly ushered in the direction of the exit – just ask Radamel Falcao. But not every player is willing to go softly into the night, drop down a level or slash their exorbitant wages – some will stick around to the bitter end.Here are 10 Premier League players that fans were happy to see leave their club.

#10 Anderson

Anderson will be remembered as a player who never reached his full potential at United

There was considerable excitement when Anderson arrived at Old Trafford for the fee of £30 million back in 2007. The midfielder had impressed during spells with Gremio and Porto and it was hoped that here was a Brazilian who could finally erase the memory of his compatriot Kleberson’s disastrous spell at the club.

The early omens were good with Anderson putting in a series of combative performances in the centre of the park culminating in him converting his spot-kick in the penalty shootout in the 2008 Champions League Final in Moscow. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.

Some have laid the blame of the former Brazil international’s decline at the feet of Sir Alex Ferguson who allegedly tried to curb the young midfielder’s attacking instincts, but it must be noted that there has also been consistent question marks over Anderson’s professional acumen and his desire to succeed at the top level throughout his career.

Anderson didn’t fit into the plans of Ferguson’s successor, David Moyes, who sent him out on loan to Fiorentina and he finally ended his seven and a half year association with the club with a January transfer to Internacional. Despite boasting a fine haul of trophies from his time at Manchester United, the Brazilian will be remembered as a player who never reached his full potential.

#9 Fernando Torres

Fernando Torres was simply not the same player after his move to Chelsea

Torres tried everything to get his groove back during his time at Chelsea, but nothing seemed to work. Some argued that he had lost a yard of pace after his injury in the 2010 season while others seemed to be of the opinion that the former Liverpool striker’s problems were mental rather than physical.

There were occasional glimmers of hope over the three and a half years Torres spent at Stamford Bridge. A good performance – usually in Europe or a cup competition – would bring about renewed optimism that El Nino might have slain his demons and would returning to the marauding forward who scored at will during his first couple of seasons in the Premiership, but every step forward was marked by two backwards.

By 2014, even his most ardent supporters had shrunk into the background and there were no protests when a loan move to AC Milan was announced, shortly followed by a return to Atletico Madrid.

#8 Abou Diaby

Abou Diaby’s time at Arsenal is remembered more for his injuries than his minutes on the pitch

It’s the hope that kills you. Signed from Auxerre for a fee of £2 million in 2006, Arsene Wenger is said to have seen the young Diaby as the natural successor to Patrick Vieira. The Frenchman had the ability – that much was never in doubt – but as one injury ran into another, it became clear that Diaby’s Arsenal career was never going to flourish in the fashion that many had predicted.

The stats speak for themselves. Over Diaby’s 9 year spell at the club, he started only 122 games for the Gunners while racking up a jaw-dropping 42 injuries. In total, the Frenchman spent 222 weeks of his spell at the club injured, and over his final four seasons at the club, he made only 22 appearances for the club.

Wenger’s loyalty seemed to know no bounds until this summer when the former French international was finally released from the club. Arsenal fans can only wonder what might have been.

#7 Joe Cole

Joe Cole never managed to re-create the impact he had at Chelsea when he joined Liverpool

It was a gamble. That much was accepted. A couple years prior, Joe Cole had been setting the Premiership alight, lifting trophies with Chelsea and impressing for England in the World Cup. A lot had changed since then. A series of injuries and a loss of form meant Chelsea had allowed his contract to run down and he was available on a free in the summer of 2010.

Cole was 29 when he signed for Liverpool, an age when many players enter the prime of their careers, but it was clear from the midfielder’s few cameos that this was not the same man who had helped Chelsea win three Premier League titles.

Cole’s Liverpool career got off to a tumultuous start after being sent off in his first league game against Arsenal after just 45 minutes. Things didn’t pick up from there.

“I can only play for teams that I’m passionate about and I think that’s what went wrong for me at Liverpool,” the former England international told a Chelsea fanzine in 2013.

The following season, Cole was loaned out to Lille and he endured another half season in the dugouts before ending his Anfield nightmare with a return to where it had all began at West Ham.

#6 Florent Malouda

Malouda was banished from the Chelsea first team at one point

Life started out brightly for Malouda at Chelsea and he enjoyed a fruitful first four years at Stamford Bridge. He boasts a collection of honours that could make many a player wince including a Premier League title, three FA Cups and Champion’s League medal from that historic night in the Allianz Arena.

Things soured upon the arrival of Juan Mata in 2011, however, and Malouda refused to go make way for the young blood (unless someone was willing to cough up his rumoured £80,000 a week wages, of course).

Malouda was banished from the first team and after a transfer failed to materialise, the Frenchman found himself unregistered as a Chelsea squad player in any competition. There were shades of Winston Bogarde some ten years earlier as Malouda turned out for the U-21 team before finally sealing a move to Trabzonspor in 2013.

#5 Roque Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz was one of the victims of Manchester City’s cash splash

Another relic from Mark Hughes’s spell in the Manchester City hot seat. The Paraguayan striker was brought in after a couple of impressive seasons with Hughes’s previous charges, Blackburn Rovers, but soon found himself surplus to requirements as the newly moneyed City began adding forwards at will following Sheikh Mansour’s injection of wealth into the club.

Over the next four years, Santa Cruz became somewhat of a journeyman with spells at Blackburn, Betis and Malaga all the while remaining on City’s books. In 2013, he made the permanent move to Betis with few City fans rueing their loss.

#4 Paulinho

Paulinho came to Tottenham Hotspur with a lot of fanfare only to fade away spectacularly

On paper, it seemed fool proof. Paulinho was a star in South America, a Brazilian international who had the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea sniffing around his signature prior to his decision to move to North London. It seemed like a sound investment of the money received from Gareth Bale’s transfer to Real Madrid if ever there was one.

Fast forward two years and to say he was a disappointment would be an understatement. Paulinho started regularly in his first season under Andre Villas-Boas and then Tim Sherwood.

But with the advent of Mauricio Pochettino, Paulinho was relegated to the sidelines where he joined Emmanuel Adebayor and Robert Soldado as part of a splinter group of exiled players that no other club was willing to touch with a barge pole due to their wages, form, attitude or a combination of all three.

There was a collective sigh of relief around White Hart Lane when Guangzhou Evergrande swooped in for the Brazilian. The Chinese club offered Spurs an unexpected £9.9 million for the ex-Corinthians man’s signature and many praised Daniel Levi for wrangling such a fee for the out-of-favour midfielder who had started only three league games in the previous campaign.

#3 Wayne Bridge

Wayne Bridge was a perpetual understudy at both Chelsea and Manchester City

Poor Wayne Bridge. Always a solid option on the left side of defence, but a perpetual understudy at the two big clubs he has turned out for. Only two years after he had signed for Chelsea from Southampton, Bridge found himself surplus to requirements when Ashley Cole decided he liked things better on the west side of London and installed himself as first choice left back for the Blues.

Then after joining Mark Hughes’s Manchester City experiment, Bridge found himself behind first Aleksander Kolorav and then Gael Clichy in the Citizen’s backline. Bridge faded into the reserves and was loaned out with such regularity that it was difficult to keep track of where he was plying his trade.

Loan spells at West Ham, Sunderland and Brighton came and went before Bridge finally signed a permanent deal with Reading in 2013.

#2 David Bentley

At one point David Bentley himself had said that he fell out of love with football

One of the most naturally gifted players of his generation whose talents were only matched by his taste for trouble and the good life. Bentley arrived at Spurs from Blackburn on a five-year deal for the stately sum of £15 million in the summer of 2009, after a series of eye-catching performances that had some going so far as to dubbing him the next David Beckham.

Things didn’t quite go to plan. Bentley made just 42 appearances for the club over the duration of his contract. After admitting openly that he had fallen out of love with the game, he retired last year at the sprightly age of 29 and has been filling his time since by running a series of restaurants and recently came out of retirement to play Gaelic football for Crossmaglen Rangers as part of a TV documentary.

#1 Winston Bogarde

Bogarde made just four starts for Chelsea all the while pocketing a sweet amount as salary

The man. The legend. Over the course of the last decade or so, Winston Bogarde – formerly of Ajax and Barcelona, latterly of the Chelsea reserves – has become somewhat of a byword for the greed that many believe to be inherent in the modern game.

This might seem harsh on the Dutchman but when you consider that he earned a cool £10 million over 4 years while togging out for the Chelsea reserves on account of no other club being willing to match his lucrative contract, it becomes a little harder to refute.

A stalwart of Louis Van Gaal and part of his Champion’s League winning Ajax team, Bogarde moved to AC Milan in 1997 and then joined up with Van Gaal once more at the Nou Camp. Chelsea signed him on a free transfer in 2000 and it was a move they would live to regret.

Bogarde would start just four games in the blue shirt during his tenure, all the while collecting a cool £50,000 a week for his troubles. In his final year at the club, he even commuted back and forth to Amsterdam via Heathrow airport.