5 most disastrous January signings in Premier League history

#5 Fernando Torres - Liverpool to Chelsea (2011)

Chelsea parted with £50m for Fernando Torres, but the move never worked out

Andy Carroll's move to Liverpool might be widely recognised as one of the most disastrous January transfers in Premier League history, but his £35m switch was only made possible by another disastrous transfer that occurred on the same day - deadline day in January 2011 to be exact.

That was the day that saw Chelsea break the British transfer record fee to bring Fernando Torres to Stamford Bridge from Liverpool, after the Spaniard had scored a tremendous 65 goals in 102 Premier League games for the Reds across three and a half seasons.

At the time of his move, Torres had returned from knee surgery in the summer of 2011 and had scored just 9 goals in 23 games, but nobody could’ve predicted how badly his form would fall off after his move to London. ‘El Nino’ failed to find the back of the net on his Chelsea debut – ironically against his old club – and that led to a 14-game drought.

After three months, the Spaniard finally scored his first goal for his new club, but it would be his only one there in 2010-11, and while 2011-12 saw him score 11 goals for the Blues – including the equaliser against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final second leg to send Chelsea into the final – he also went on a run of 24 games without a goal, and looked nothing like the player he’d been at Liverpool.

Torres’ Chelsea career ended at the end of 2013-14 with a loan move to AC Milan, and the Spaniard departed Stamford Bridge with just 20 Premier League goals in 110 appearances – making him one of the worst January signings of all time.