5 times clubs missed out on Deadline Day signings

2017’s January Transfer Deadline Day saw a handful of massive moves from the Premier League’s big boys – Arsenal broke their transfer record to sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Borussia Dortmund for £56m, and in turn, sold Olivier Giroud to London rivals Chelsea for a cut-price £15m. Tottenham snapped up Lucas Moura from Paris St. Germain for £23m, and even Swansea splashed out £18m to sign Andre Ayew from West Ham.

A handful of moves fell through, though – most notably Manchester City’s late attempt to sign Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City. Mahrez’s potential signing was the biggest that fell through, but in the past, we’ve seen some pretty crazy things happen when clubs attempt to sign a player on deadline day only to see the deal fall through. Here are five of the most memorable.

#5 Robinho to Chelsea, 2008

Robinho's Chelsea move fell through and he ended up at Manchester City instead

While he didn’t go on to the stellar career that many predicted he would have, back in 2008 Robinho was hot property all across the football world, as he’d fallen out of favour at Real Madrid – supposedly breaking down in tears in the club president’s office - and the Spanish side were looking to offload him quickly. The most likely suitor seemed to be Chelsea, and in the January 2008 transfer window, it looked like they’d get their man.

Robinho was invited to Stamford Bridge for contract talks, and supposedly, a £29m deal was agreed between Real and Chelsea. But when Robinho was unveiled on deadline day, it wasn’t by the Blues – but by the Sky Blues of Manchester City. Newly minted due to their takeover by the Abu Dhabi group, City swooped in with a massive £32.5m and snapped up the Brazilian from under Chelsea’s nose – even Robinho himself seemed surprised by the move, as evidenced by his confusion in the press conference that saw him unveiled.

At the time, the word was that Chelsea wouldn’t match City’s bid, but Robinho has recently come out with another theory – claiming Chelsea’s decision to sell replica shirts with his name printed on the back before he’d even signed irked the Madrid powerbrokers and put them off selling him to a Champions League rival. Whatever the truth, this was one of the wildest deadline day deals to fall through.

#4 Thomas Lemar to Arsenal, 2017

Thomas Lemar's Arsenal move fell apart on deadline day in 2017

When Manchester City began sniffing around Arsenal’s star forward Alexis Sanchez in the summer of 2017, a move seemed likely as City could offer Sanchez more money and likely more success, too. And so Arsenal began to shop around for a replacement for the Chilean star and seemed to have settled on Monaco’s French winger Thomas Lemar, who’d risen to fame in 2016/17 by helping his side tear through to the Champions League semi-finals.

Arsenal supposedly agreed a deal in principle with the player, and were all set to bid up to a mind-boggling £90m for him, but on deadline day the plug was pulled, and with no replacement available Arsenal held onto Sanchez – for a few more months at least. But what happened with regards to Lemar? Well, at the time it was claimed that the Frenchman simply didn’t want to move to Arsenal – whether he was holding out for a better offer or just wished to stay put was a question mark.

Since then, however, Monaco have stated that Lemar did want to move to the Emirates, but having lost a handful of their other stars to bigger clubs – Kylian Mbappe, Bernardo Silva, Benjamin Mendy and Tiemoue Bakayoko all left for pastures new during the same transfer window – they simply decided to put their foot down and reject any and all bids for the winger. By doing so, the French outfit not only caused Lemar’s move to fall through, but Sanchez’s too, making it a fine example of the domino effect in football.

#3 Joao Moutinho to Tottenham Hotspur, 2012

Joao Moutinho's move to Spurs fell apart due to the issue of third-party ownership

After selling midfield star Luka Modric to Real Madrid for £30m in the summer of 2012, then-Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas looked all set to turn to one of his countrymen as the Croatian’s replacement. Moutinho – at the time playing at home with Porto – had starred in Portugal’s Euro 2012 campaign that saw them make the semi-finals, and seemed like he’d fit right into AVB’s plans at White Hart Lane.

A £24m bid was tabled by Spurs; Porto accepted the offer, and Moutinho made his way to London for contract discussions. But with the deal seemingly on the table, at the very last minute – Moutinho himself has stated he was literally “minutes away” from being a Tottenham player – it suddenly fell through and the Portuguese midfielder was left at Porto for another year before moving to Monaco.

Paperwork – or a lack thereof – was initially blamed for the deal going awry, but it turned out to be more than that. Of the £24m Spurs were offering, 25% of the profit on the player was to go to Sporting Lisbon, who had sold him to Porto, but 15% was also due to a “third party investor”, who had bought that percentage of the rights to the player from Porto in 2011.

With the Premier League’s rules barring any third-party interest in players, Spurs simply couldn’t get the deal done quickly enough. It was an awkward situation and in the end, Tottenham came away empty-handed, while Moutinho remains at Monaco having signed with them the following summer.

#2 Adrien Silva to Leicester City, 2017

Adrien Silva ended up in limbo when FIFA pulled the plug on his move to Leicester

One of the first signings to go through in 2018’s January transfer window was the move of Portuguese midfielder Adrien Silva to Leicester City. The player signed from Sporting Lisbon for £22m, and he even made his debut for the Foxes on New Year’s Day. Why did it all happen so quickly? Well, because of an odd situation that caused the move to fall through on the previous transfer window’s deadline day.

Interest in Silva from Leicester came during the summer when their star midfielder Danny Drinkwater was linked with a move to Chelsea. But with Chelsea haranguing over a fee for Drinkwater, the 2015/16 Premier League champions didn’t want to risk spending a large fee on Silva if they couldn’t sell the England midfielder beforehand. But when Drinkwater’s move was finalised, at last, it looked like Leicester would finally close the deal on Silva, too.

Despite Sporting haggling over a price, eventually £22m was agreed and the paperwork was sent off to the FA to register the player, only for FIFA to torpedo the move when they claimed the papers had arrived late – by all of 14 seconds. Both Silva and Leicester claimed they were disgusted by the whole mess, but despite protests, FIFA refused to sanction the deal and Silva ended up in limbo for four months before being allowed to complete his move to the King Power Stadium. It was perhaps the strangest deadline day plug-pulling of them all.

#1 Peter Odemwingie to Queens Park Rangers, 2013

Even a late night drive couldn't take Peter Odemwingie to QPR in 2013

It’s a well-known trope of modern football to claim that “player power” has now gone a step too far, but back in 2013 striker Peter Odemwingie found out that you can’t always get what you want, even when you drive yourself to the intended destination. Playing for West Bromwich Albion at the time, Odemwingie had started the 2012/13 season well by scoring five goals, but fell out with boss Steve Clarke and demanded a move in the January 2013 transfer window.

Odemwingie was so desperate for a move that he began to rant against West Brom on Twitter, claiming they’d been “reaching into his pocket”, and so it seemed obvious that the player would have to be sold. A suitable destination was found in QPR, and so the clubs began to talk. But the move fell through on deadline day when a suitable replacement for Odemwingie at the Hawthorns couldn’t be found. Unfortunately, such things didn’t mean much to the Nigerian striker.

Despite a deal not being reached between the two clubs, Odemwingie made the call to drive himself to Loftus Road, where he was then refused entry by QPR brass as he had no permission to be there. Even during the madness that is deadline day, this incident was on another level altogether. Clarke, for his part, described Odemwingie’s actions as “lunacy” and stated that the player had “jumped the gun”. Odemwingie ended up returning to West Brom with his tail between his legs, and rarely featured for the team until the 2013 summer window, when he finally completed a move – to Cardiff City.