With a whirlwind start to the Premier League season punctuated by the 2nd International break, we can afford the luxury to sit back and take a better look at the teams other than ours and afford to be critical of the players, the managers and even about the way a club is run. Well come on, it doesn’t cost to criticise and truth be told, there have been a handful of players who have disappointed after coming in with high expectations or a huge price tag.
With the self-granted liberty, we take a look at the 3 players who have flattered to deceive after joining their clubs this season.
MOUSSA SISSOKO
Many would recognise him as the man who went helicopter hopping in England in search of a club while you probably wouldn’t be welcome at the house of a Geordie if you happened to mention his name in the neighbourhood. The drama queen from Tyneside bartered the best move for him at the last moment and possibly the worst move for the club he was joining. And all the fears the Spurs fans had have come true.
Sissoko has looked like a total waste of £30m. An amount with which they could have gotten Gundogan and all of Coutinho. If we are to go simply by Squawka’s performance score this season he unsurprisingly has a score of -44. We will keep it at this.
JORDON IBE
Perhaps taking a cue from Liverpool, who have a fetish for Southampton’s best players, Bournemouth started a trend to balance things out for the Reds and started buying their fringe players for ‘difficult to justify’ amounts. One of the surprise buys of this season was Liverpool’s youth academy product Jordan Ibe, who was sold to the Cherries for a whopping £15m.
While it won’t be fair to criticise him regarding the price tag, over which the poor lad had no control, his performances have been extremely poor nonetheless. He has contributed 0 goals and 0 assists and needs to turn things around pretty quickly else he has to bear the brunt of being branded a big money failure at such an early stage in his career.
PAUL POGBA
When you buy a player for £89m you expect an immediate impact. Be it through his goals or his assists or through his performances on the pitch which would lift the crowd and his teammates. It is safe to say not much has been on display till now.
While we are not calling Pogba a failure as he can well go on to become a key and influential figure for them, he certainly has had a poor restart to life in Manchester. A return of 2 goals and no assists shows his plight when it comes to the end product, which he should be producing on a daily basis.
STATS COURTESY- SQUAWKA.COM
