We all have a story about an expensive purchase we had to eventually and reluctantly admit was a complete waste of money.
Maybe it was a new car that looks good but has the most unreliable of engines. Or maybe a shiny new guitar because you will ‘definitely learn to play it one day’. Maybe even a set of golf clubs that grow mouldy in the corner of the garage.
But at least for us mere mortals, accepting this fact does not come with a loss of several millions of pounds.
Football clubs and their owners are not shy in splashing the cash and while sometimes it can work out, there are just as many times when the same decision-makers have had to cut their losses and sell for a huge financial hit.
Here then are 10 Premier League players who cost their clubs a whole lot of money that they would never see again…
Nicolas Pepe at Arsenal
Kicking off this list is one-time wunderkind Nicolas Pepe for whom Arsenal paid an eye-watering £72m in the summer of 2019.
A sizeable haul of 37 goals and 18 assists at Lille convinced Unai Emery and the Arsenal board to part with the not-inconsiderable money but Pepe would never recapture that form at the Emirates.
His first season saw him score 16 times in 47 appearances but he followed that with just one goal in the entire 2021/22 league campaign.
The following season, Arsenal sent him out on loan to Nice before the Gunners terminated his deal in 2023, allowing him to move to Super Lig side Trabzonspor on a free.
Loss: £72m
Fernando Torres at Chelsea
He had established himself as one of the best strikers in the world, but there were already signs of Fernando Torres’ decline before he made the switch to Chelsea.
The London club parted with £50m, making him the British transfer record and sixth most expensive player of all time, but he started his career at Stamford Bridge by going 903 minutes without a goal, including a memorable miss at Old Trafford where he rounded David de Gea only to blast his shot wide past an empty net.
When the goal eventually came, it proved to be his only one of the 2010/11 season and from there, his stock rapidly fell.
No more than eight league goals in a year from 2011 to 2014 meant Chelsea were happy to ship Torres out on loan to Milan and then Atletico before letting him go for free.
Loss: £50m
Sebastien Haller at West HamWhen Sebastian Haller started banging them in for fun at Borussia Dortmund, West Ham fans must have been wondering where that particular player was hiding when he was in east London.
The Hammers spent £45m on the Frenchman having seen him score 51 in 98 for Utrecht and then 33 in 77 for Eintracht Frankfurt, but those goals quickly dried up in the graveyard of strikers.
Signing a five-year deal, he was sold for a 58% loss just 18 months later.
Loss: £26.2m
Romelu Lukaku at ChelseaLukaku to Chelsea may well go down as one of the worst pieces of transfer business of all time; not only did they break the bank for him, but they soon found him in open revolt.
After a title-winning season with Inter, Chelsea opted to bring Lukaku back to the Bridge for his second stint, but having found himself at odds with Thomas Tuchel’s tactics, Lukaku took to the media to criticise his manager and the club.
He said he was “not happy” and hoped to return to Inter, which saw him dropped from the squad entirely. One public apology later and the Belgian was back playing but a year later, he was sent out on loan to Inter with a fee of £6.9m.
In 2023, he moved to Roma before signing permanently for Napoli in 2024. Despite recouping €30m, it remains an enormous loss compared to the price they paid for him.
Loss: £72.3m
Eliaquim Mangala at Manchester CityA fee of £43m made Eliaquim Mangala the most expensive defender in the world, and yet he really was terrible at defending during his stint at Manchester City.
He made just 11 league appearances in his first season but that number dropped to zero the following year when a knee injury kept him out for 263 days.
Upon his return, he was shipped out on loan to Valencia in 2016 before joining Everton in 2018.
The French centre-back made 79 appearances across his five-year contract at the Etihad but left on a free in August 2019.
Loss: £43m
Paul Pogba at Manchester UnitedPaul Pogba being eighth on the all-time most expensive Premier League transfers despite being almost a decade ago, tells you everything about the luxurious nature of this purchase.
Having had him in the academy, United had the ultimate case of sellers’ remorse as they brought the World Cup winner back to the club at great expense, but he never found a natural position in the team and could not match the performances he put in at Juventus.
His attitude also rubbed plenty up the wrong way and Pogba’s passenger-like appearances made him a figure of frustration for both fans and managers.
In June 2022, United opted to let Pogba’s contract run out, meaning they had lost £89.3 million after just six seasons.
Loss: £89.3m
Donny van de Beek at Manchester United
Part of the talented Ajax side that reached the Champions League quarter-finals, Donny van de Beek would come to be the ghost of Old Trafford.
United paid £35m for the Dutchman but he made just four starts in the league before not even managing one in the next campaign, raising the question of why the club even bothered to buy him.
As managers came and went, none of them seemed to like the look of Van de Beek with the midfielder playing just nine minutes in 10 Premier League matches.
In January 2022, United cut their losses by sending him out on loan to Everton before another loan stint at Eintracht Frankfurt. The latter deal involved an option to buy at €11 million which the German club passed on, meaning he joined La Liga side Girona for relative pennies in July 2024.
Loss: £32.5m
Timo Werner at ChelseaHaving finished the 2019/20 season as the Bundesliga’s second top scorer, there was a lot of expectation on Timo Werner when he joined Chelsea for £47.5 million.
He was part of Chelsea’s Champions League-winning side but never found the same fluency in west London. In 2022, Chelsea opted to sell Werner back to Leipzig for a £25.3m fee (they were lucky to get that) but even that was a great loss.
Loss: £22.2m
Angel di Maria at Manchester UnitedWith Moyes out and Van Gaal in, there was a sense of optimism back at Old Trafford in the summer of 2014 and the good vibes only increased when the club announced the signing of Angel di Maria, a player who had just been named man of the match in the Champions League final.
But Di Maria never settled into life in Manchester. Even as he signed, he said he never wanted to leave Madrid and despite a bright start, Di Maria’s form fell away during the winter months.
A hamstring injury restricted him to one substitute appearance in seven games before he picked up a red card in March for grabbing the shirt of referee Michael Oliver.
With his wife calling Manchester a “s***hole”, it came as no surprise to see Di Maria move to Paris just a year later.
Loss: £15.7m
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Mario Balotelli to LiverpoolWhen Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool were faced with the impossible task of replacing Luis Suarez, there turned (eventually and reluctantly) to…Mario Balotelli.
After returning to Italy following his Manchester City spell, Balotelli was pulled back into the Premier League but when his career there began with Rodgers admitting the striker was not his first choice, it summed up just how his Anfield stint would go.
While there were not the fireworks in the toilet of Balotelli’s previous time in England, the striker did get himself into a fair bit of trouble including posting antisemitic images on social media and swapping shirts with Pepe at half time in the match against Real Madrid, something Rodgers said “shouldn’t happen here”.
He scored his first goal in his 13th appearance but that would be just one of four and he was out the door the following year.
Loss: £16m