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While Thierry Henry would like to disagree, the Premier League has established itself as a league that is awash with world-class talent. Over the course of the last 2 decades, many Premier League clubs have splurged millions in a bid to bring the best talent to the English shores and while the likes of Thierry Henry, Luis Suarez, and Cristiano Ronaldo have taken the league by the storm amongst a host of other players, there have been various individuals who have failed to live up to their billing.
In this segment, we take a look at 10 of the worst strikers to have played in the Premier League era.
#10 Darko Kovacevic (Sheffield Wednesday)
Before making a move to Sheffield Wednesday, who were part of the Premier League then, Kovacevic had been in a phenomenal form for the likes of Proleter Zrenjanin and Red Star Belgrade. The striker had notched up an incredible 74 goals in 98 appearances for the aforementioned clubs when Sheffield came calling with a fee believed to be in the region of £2 million.
While his stint in England began well, the striker who had been involved internationally with the erstwhile Yugoslavia and subsequently the Serbia and Montenegro squad failed to live up to the expectation. Kovacevic made just 16 appearances for the Owls and managed to score just 4 goals and was snapped up by Real Sociedad after spending just half a season at the Hillsborough Stadium.
However, to his credit, the big burly striker did not let a bad stint affect his career as he was back amongst the goals for his subsequent clubs which included the likes of Real Sociedad (92 goals in 278 appearances), Juventus (21 goals in 47 appearances) and Olympiacos (31 goals in 60 appearances) before hanging up his boots.
#9 Stephan Guivarc’h (Newcastle United)
While many Newcastle fans cite that the reason for Newcastle United signing Guivarc’h in the summer of 1998 was on the account of the player being part of the successful French National Team, that was not the case. The Frenchman signed for Kenny Dalglish’s Newcastle United on the back of an impressive 1996-97 as well 1997-98 season for Rennes and Auxerre respectively where he won the golden boot in France in both the seasons.
However, like several other players who have failed to adapt to the Premier League, Guivarc’h too could not make a mark in the League. While he began his stint with Newcastle in a good manner, scoring against Kenny’s beloved Liverpool, he played just 3 more times for the Magpies before being deemed excess to the requirement by Ruud Guilt in November.
The striker was shipped to Rangers just a few months after moving to England and while he might have won a treble in his first and only season in Scotland, his lacklustre performances, as well as swift decline, make him one of the worst buys of all times in the history of the Premier League.
#8 Jo (Manchester City)
The arrival of Sheikh Mansour as the owner of Manchester City has changed the club’s fortunes in a short time. The club has gone from being a cannon fodder to one of the most sought-after destinations in the game of football. However, Manchester City too made a few mistakes in their early days under Sheikh Mansour and one of the biggest mistakes of the club was signing Brazilian striker Jo for a whopping £19 million in 2008 from CSKA Moscow.
The then 21-year-old had scored goals at a healthy rate in Brazil as well as Russia and that forced the hierarchy at the erstwhile City of Manchester Stadium into believing that he was the man to bring about a change in the fortunes of the club. However, it was not to be as Jo failed to live up to his billing and went from being the poster boy at the club to an outcast in a short time.
After spending the 2008-09 season at City, a season in which he scored 3 goals in 15 appearances, Jo was sent out on loan to Everton for the next 2 seasons in the hope that a move away from the limelight might help him find his scoring boots but it was not to be as he came up a cropper during his 2-year loan stint at the Goodison Park.
After a series of failed seasons, Manchester City finally decided to cut their losses at the end of the 2010-11 season when he was sold to the Brazilian outfit Internacional.
#7 Helder Postiga (Tottenham Hotspur)
Helder Postiga, who was a regular feature with the Portuguese national team for a large duration in between 2003 and 2014, came through the ranks at Porto and was believed to be a striker of proven pedigree even before he signed for Tottenham Hotspur in 2003.
The striker had scored 31 goals in 87 appearances for the Portuguese club since breaking into the first team at the beginning of the 2001-02 season, which was a healthy scoring rate for a player in the early stages of his career. Tottenham believed they had brought one of the most exciting attacking talents on the English shores in the form of Postiga but it proved to be a move that failed to breathe any life into the club’s position on the pitch.
The former Portuguese international featured just 24 times for Spurs and failed to help them improve on their previous season as the Lilywhites finished 14th and it goes without saying that Postiga’s inability to find the back of the net for long spells made him a subject of immense scrutiny.
Postiga departed from the English shores at the beginning of the 2004 season, rejoining his former club Porto but never really managed to hit the peaks that many believed he would.
#6 Afonso Alves (Middlesbrough)
To be fair to the Brazilian, he had been in a phenomenal goalscoring form since breaking into the Malmo starting line-up in 2004. Alves had scored an incredible 80 goals in 115 appearances across all competitions for Malmo and subsequently Heerenveen before Middlesbrough came calling in the winter transfer window of the 2007-08 season.
After their 7th placed finish in the 2004-05 season, Boro had fallen down the pecking order in English football after having finished 14th and 12th in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 season and were in desperate to bring a striker of substantial quality. When the club signed Alves for the then club record fee of £12.5 million in January, it was believed that he was the right man to transform the side into a feared unit.
However, those claims proved to be unfounded in a very short span of time as not only did Alves fail to impress, he was actually very poor almost every time he featured. While he did score a hattrick on the final day of his first season in England, it was against a hapless Manchester City side (they were not the footballing power that they are at the moment).
Any hopes of him becoming a club legend were squashed in the subsequent season in which he failed to make any real impact as he scored just 7 goals in 34 appearances and was subsequently sold to the Qatari club Al-Sadd.
#5 Mario Jardel (Bolton Wanderers)
If you thought Afonso Alves the worst Brazilian striker to have played football in England, you are mistaken for there was the phenomenon known as Mario Jardel.
Jardel had established himself as a legend in Brazil, Turkey as well as Portugal with his ability in front of the goal for the likes of Vasco Da Gama, Gremio, Porto, Galatasaray, and Sporting, having scored 269 goals in 275 appearances. The striker had won the European golden boot in 1998-99 and 2001-02 with Porto and Sporting respectively and when Bolton signed him at the beginning of the 2003-04 season, the fans of the club were ecstatic.
However, it proved to be a move that tarnished the player’s image as he made just 11 appearances for the Trotters and scored a meagre 3 goals and was allowed to join Italian side Ancona in the winter transfer window of the same season, yes you read that right. It was perhaps one of the swiftest downfalls experienced by any in the game of football as the Brazilian went from being a feared entity to a subject of footballing jokes in a matter of a few months.
In hindsight, the move to Bolton came at a time when Jardel was already past his prime and despite the club finishing a respectable 8th in the season, it was largely due to the efforts of a certain Kevin Nolan and not the Brazilian who was expected to score goals for fun.
#4 El Hadji Diouf (Liverpool)
If you find the likes of Mario Balotelli, you would be amazed at what a saint the Italian is when compared to the former Senegalese striker El Hadji Diouf. While Diouf might currently be in the news on the account of his comments on several prominent footballers such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, he was actually believed to be the best footballer on the continent of Africa in the early part of the last decade.
The striker had been crowned African player of the year in 2001, as well as 2002 and Liverpool were quick to snap up his signature even before his heroics in the 2002 World Cup, where he made it to the team of the tournament. However, the Reds would not have imagined what was to come in their wildest dreams.
The Senegalese footballer, who constantly flirted with off field troubles, failed to live up to his reputation in England despite being given numerous opportunities and managed to score just 6 goals for the Reds in 79 appearances, making him one of the worst signings in the history of the League.
He was shipped to Bolton Wanderers at the beginning of the 2004-05 season, initially on loan, after Liverpool finally gave up on the striker’s abilities and in a hindsight, the side simply cut their losses as the player failed to score more than 9 goals (he scored 9 goals for Bolton in 32 appearances for Bolton in the 2004-05 season) in a single season.
#3 Andreas Cornelius (Cardiff City)
It was the beginning of the 2013-14 season and Cardiff Fans had every reason to be excited. The club had secured promotion to the coveted Premier League after having spent 51 seasons away from the English top flight and while they were touted to be amongst the weakest units in the league, that did not deter the club’s fans from being optimistic.
That optimism perhaps hit its heights when the club decided to splurge a club record £8 million to acquire the services of Danish striker Cornelius from FC Copenhagen. After all, the striker had played a crucial role in his side’s title-winning 2012-13 campaign and the move to the Premier League was believed to be a natural progression in his career.
However, when clubs like Cardiff splurge on you, they expect goals so as to ensure their status as a Premier League club but that was not the case with the Danish striker. A spate of recurring injuries meant that he did not find the requisite game time to establish himself as a regular in the Cardiff side and was allowed to return to FC Copenhagen in the winter transfer window of the same season after failing to score in the 8 games that he featured.
The return of the player to familiar surroundings might have helped him regain his confidence but Cornelius is no longer the player that he was touted to be with injuries disrupting his development as a footballer.
#2 Sean Dundee (Liverpool)
A look at their transfer dealings would make one believe that Liverpool had the knack of making ridiculous transfers under the aegis of Gerard Houlier and Roy Evans. The club had been thrown into a rather difficult situation at the beginning of the 1998-99 season when Robbie Fowler incurred a long-term injury and was believed to be out until at least winter.
The side were desperate to bring a striker to the Merseyside so as to add to the side’s attacking options and decided it was in the best interest of the side if they forked out £2 million for Sean Dundee, a man who had 60 goals in 115 appearances for Karlsruher SC and TSF Ditzingen.
Dundee arrived at Liverpool claiming to be faster than their golden boy at time Michael Owen but failed to live up to his claims. He failed to break into the side even when the regular striker at the club, Owen, was injured and never started a game for the Reds. He made just 3 appearances for the Reds, all of them as substitutes and needless to say never managed to score for the Reds.
He returned to Germany at the end of his one and only season on the English soil when he signed for VfB Stuttgart and to this day, is believed to the worst signing in the history of the club and that is quite a feat when you consider have signed the likes of Paul Konchesky, Andy Voronin and El Hadji Diouf amongst a host of other players who failed to live up to their billing.
#1 Bebe (Manchester United)
Sir Alex Ferguson might be considered to be the greatest man to have managed a club in the Premier League era but that does not mean that the Scot did not make mistakes in his glorious career as the manager of Manchester United. While some cite his inability to retain key players such as Jaap Stam or Ruud Van Nistelrooy as the lowest point in his career, a large section of Manchester United fans will agree that signing Portuguese footballer Bebe without having ever watched him play was a hilarious yet costly mistake.
Bebe had joined Portuguese outfit Vitoria de Guimaraes in the summer of 2010 before Carlos Queiroz, the then assistant manager at Manchester United decided the time was right to bring Bebe to England and convinced Sir Alex to part with £7.4 million in order to activate his release clause in order to beat the likes of Real Madrid and Benfica to his signature.
However, once Bebe arrived in England, it became clear in a matter of days that he was not yet prepared for life in the Premier League as the hierarchy at the Old Trafford deemed that he did not have the adequate skill set to be involved extensively with the side. Bebe featured just 7 times for the Red Devils and scored twice and was ultimately sold to Benfica at the beginning of the 2014-15 season after a series of loans at Besiktas, Rio Ave and Pacos de Ferreira (where he managed to score 14 goals in 39 appearances).
