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#6 Jeremy Mathieu - £15.8m, Valencia to Barcelona, 2014
French defender Mathieu was an odd signing for Barcelona from the off given he was already 30 at the time of his move from Valencia in 2014, and of course, you’d have thought Barca could go out and sign practically any player they wished – so paying almost £16m for a 30-year old with just four international caps to his name was never really going to be popular with the fans.
Although Mathieu played plenty of games for Barcelona during his run there and won La Liga with them in 2014/15 and 2015/16, it was always clear he wasn’t quite up to scratch when compared to some of his more illustrious teammates and after a diabolical performance against Juventus in the Champions League quarter-finals, he was substituted at half-time and didn’t appear since.
This summer saw him move to Portugal with Sporting Lisbon and unsurprisingly, they didn’t have to pay anywhere near the fee that Barcelona did for the Frenchman. As a matter of fact they didn’t pay a penny – they picked Mathieu up on a free transfer after he was allowed to leave the Nou Camp as a free agent after the 2016/17 season ended.
