Your worst flop ever?

i say mine got to be a guy called fred not the one who played for Lyon

he came from no where in the brazillian league

and scout said he got potential

i brought him for 15million in my chelsea league, and after 2 weekes without a game he could not settle and wanted to move i was well annoyed

I forked out 20 million to sign a Brazilian left back when managing Juventus on 09.

I had monitored his progress for years until he was 21 and thought he was ripe to sign and have him bomb down the left. He had been tearing the Brazilian league apart for years.

I signed him and he was delighted to come and had even been rewarded with a Brazilian cap.

I gave him his first start against Torino, probably one of the worst debuts ever. He was sent off and received the lowest rating I've ever had, a 1.3.

Following a string of seriously poor performances, sending offs. He was loaned back to Brazil and eventually signed on a permanent. I was disappointed but got a wedge of cash back for him.

Maybe when I was managing in Russia with Rubin. I won the league one season and decided that the seaon after I wanted to try and get as far as possible in Europe. I needed a goalscorer, someone clinical.

I had been looking at a Brazilian striker Lainderson (Newgen) that played for Santos, he had just turned 22, had a Brazil cap and scored nearly 200 goals in Brazil in around 300 games.

I signed him from Santos for a fee of £17m. Yes a big fee, but this guy wass clinical, finishing of 20, compusure 19 and off the ball 19.

His debut was a memorable one, after just 6 minutes he was sent of for elbowing someone.

He served his banned and I put him on the bench, after 60 minutes of a game I brought him on and you can guess what happens.... he recieves another red card, this time for a two footed tackle.

I fined him 2 weeks wages, he became unsettled with life in Russia, unsettled the team, hardly ever turned up to training and wanted a move away.

Then, after making 16 appearances for me without a goal, he gets injured, torn calf muscle out for 5 months. Then I made up my mind, I was going to sell him once he returned to fitness to recieve some of my money back.

He returns to fitness so I offer him out, one loan offer from former club Santos. £1.5m loan fee, 100% wages and future fee of 6.25m. I accepted, he was that much of a bad influence on my team!

So to sum him up:

Cost: 17m

Games: 16

Goals: 0

Yellow Cards: 4

Red Cards: 2

Sold: 6.25m

it was diego

signed him for 20 mil

23 games later avg rating of 6.19......

sold for 8.5 mil to juventus

i think i'm in the middle of one.

picked up a DM from argentina, cost me $19M from Boca for the 18yr old, dubbed a wonderkid, he's going into his 3rd season at Liverpool, only made 6 league apperances, played about 15 cup games only 1 goal. He's been sent off 3 times, broke his leg in season 2 and promptly got into a fight with my starting RB (who wanted to move anyway, so wasn't too much of an issue, just annoying).

might give him another 6 months, then see if he wants to go somewhere else. problem is that he is apparently happy at the club. Guess i would be happy too if i was earning $7.5M a year to do NOTHING!!

I'm in 2023 so he's a FRED.

sergio arguero for everton paid 60 m up front in cash , first game against blackburn he gets rating of 5.63. against sunderland?3.4

:'(

Esteban Granero from Real Madrid

Buy - 18.5 mil

Only started less than 10 games for me because he doesn't fit into my system. Booted off the following season to Manchester City for the same value.(Guess not too bad eh)

@NEXT GENERATION

:eek::eek:

hhhmmmm really tough one for me. Personally I didn't give him a big chance to shine but in the matches he played he was awful. Adrian Moores, signed him from Man Utd for 20m. In 17 appearances he scored 2 goals. He lasted 3 seasons before i sold him off for 4.2m to Porto. Every other player I've bought I've made at least a 50% profit at least. One player who didn't even play a game for me cost me 12.5m, I sent him to U-18's for 2 seasons then sent to my feeder club for 2 years straight where he played a number of games. His stats hardly moved and by that time I was bored of him and sold him on to Chelsea for 1.5m. Those 2 were my worst ever signings in my 24 years of managing my Arsenal team. I'm more careful now on how I nuture my talent and who I buy as well in general.

sergio arguero for everton paid 60 m up front in cash , first game against blackburn he gets rating of 5.63. against sunderland?3.4

:'(

What?!

Aguero is amazing! Well, for me! Lol.

How the hell did you persuade him to go to Everton?

Signed David Silva for £45 million over 48 months £30 million of it up front

Didnt score or get any assists in 1st season until February, my 25th game in and have average rating 5.8 at end of season

2nd season Didnt score at all and got 1 assist on boxing day average rating 6.1 or 6.2

Sold for £8 million

I signed Adriano for Newcastle for 20m... Didnt score a single goal in a season, played 20 odd games, became unsettled, no one would have him so ended up releasing him on a free.

I bough a very gifted winger from Brazil to my City squad in January period . during the season the was very unhappy and unsettle in the England . at the end of the season the come and that he has settle and became happy . So u need to give him some time.

Sandro (The one that just signed for Spurs) Paid £17.25m his stats were great and he played great in brazil and was only 21, played 11 games avg rating of 6.13 and was utterly dissapointed eventually sold him for 11m.

Most of the players mentioned are brazilian just shows you the difference in quality of league there.

Played ok really but worst flop really because of the amount of times he flopped.

Started as Kaiserlautern took them up first season, lost the amazing Georges Mandjeck, was struggling in the bundesliga only getting 7 pts before January. Signed a young French Malian named Guida Fofana for £2.5M a big amount of money for Kaiserslautern. He struggled for 3 games then he told me he was unsettled, he first went for a months leave, played one more game badly and still he was unsettled repeated the process over and over again he was never happy. At the end of the season after relegation even after being unbeaten in 17 games, I was sacked. I went to Newcastle who had become a bottom dweller in the Championship, in January I brought Fofana in for only £750,000, bargain for a bloke with his potential, same old tricks played by him and almost instantly he is on loan to Le Havre. Eventually he was a star for me at Sevilla but he really flopped at Newcastle and Kaiserslautern.

Georginio Wijnaldum...said he was a "wonderkid" and my scouts agreed. I paid over the top for him, I was Hull so £9 million was a lot for us, but I thought he would become a world beater. He never got going, and even though he would put in a decent shift he never scored or assisted. I had him for several years and despite playing most of the games, he never became the "wonderkid" they said he would be. Ended up selling him back to Holland for a cut price. Not as big as a flop as others on here, but for the amount of money I spent with a club that has little to spend, he was very disappointing. Wasted a lot of time and bad performances on him.

Wonderkid my a**

your mum's floppy

Bought a striker with amazing stats from PSG for 37,5M euros plus 50% of his next transfer.

Scored 8 goals in 36 games, 3 assists.

Sold him to Milan for 28 million euros, half of this amount went to Paris!

David Villa.. he was great for me in fm09, but fm10 5 games o goals 5.4 avg.. and broke his leg wasted £14 mil

Lukas Podolski in FM2009 - looked good but was absolute rubbish

From what I read here it seems that the South American players often turn out to be not as good as expected. I think this is either because many South Americans are 'temperamental' or they can't adjust to the lifestyle in Europe. In game, of course.

Lukas Podolski in FM2009 - looked good but was absolute rubbish

Haha, the same mistake Cologne made this season... bought him back from Bayern. 26 appearances and 3 goals. Not exactly what you expect from a 10-million-signing.

:(

He did get into decent scoring opportunities but then he turned into Emile Heskey in front of goal.

not actually a flop, but i gambled and signed a backup gk for free. I got a huge cries of concerns from all corners about how he might potentially disrupt the team and dressing room harmony. shipped him out on loaned for the whole of his first season, and sold him off to Juventus the next season for some 2mil. Played 0 games, and the fans signed a huge relief on his departure and actually praised the move of selling him to our arch rivals...

If this thread has taught me anything its - don't sign players from Brazil!

i signed villa and silva at the same tym for man city first league game both get injured both out for 9 months money well spent

I signed Branimir Kostadinov on a free from Hearts while I was at Newport County. Had a fantastic first year with the club scoring 35 times in 38 games, subsequently helping us achieve promotion. Something must have spooked him during the summer because he didn't score again in the next two seasons. Needless to say he was quickly sold to League 1's Bristol Rovers, where he went on to become a club legend and top scorer consistently in League One, CCC and The premiership after his £10M transfer to Arsenal :@

To those who say it's just the Brazilians;

I signed Diego Renan for £14 million after scouting him a fair bit. I was cautious but took the plunge. He was great for my Liverpool side but Atletico Madrid came in with a £34 million bid in the summer of 2011. Sad to lose him but that's a good wedge of cash.

It's not all Brazilians of course, I've had Van der Vaart flop a few times as well as David Silva.

:(

He did get into decent scoring opportunities but then he turned into Emile Heskey in front of goal.

You only gave him 7 starts. He scored 5 goals. A bit quick to get rid of him don't you think?

You only gave him 7 starts. He scored 5 goals. A bit quick to get rid of him don't you think?

TBF mate we only see the stats, im sure from having the guy and seeing him x has a good reason for letting him go.

Unfortunate as he looks a beast elsewhere.

I signed some random Bulgarian with the work rate of a 15 year old school boy for £30M... oh wait, that one wasn't me

You only gave him 7 starts. He scored 5 goals. A bit quick to get rid of him don't you think?

The two goals he scored in Europe were against second-rate opposition in the Champions League, a rare start for him in a dead rubber.

The reason I didn't start him often was simply because he was rubbish. I remember 2 of his goals came early-on in the season after coming off the bench. Took him ages to find the net and yes, I started him then to try and get him off to a good start. Didn't work.

At the end of the day I dropped him in my Under-20s to try and get his form back. He was rubbish for them too! It was depressing how he would leave matches with 0, 1 or 2 shots on target with no goals.

He never translated his international form into club form either. I used to start him after the international break to see if he could continue his goalscoring form. He couldn't.

When I substitute on I generally never substitute after 75' except in tight games against my title rivals. I'd never throw him on late because he'd need to get a goal or assist to get a decent rating. If I recall I only ever chucked him on at the hour mark or so.

So the story of his career with me:

3-4 starts at the start of the season, no goals, 6s and 7s

Dropped to the bench

Scored 1-2 goals from the bench eventually

Got absolutely nowhere against grey teams in Europe

Scored 2 goals against rubbish opposition

Couple more starts after international breaks, performed rubbish

Generally rubbish from the bench afterwards

Dropped to my Under-20s, rubbish for them too

Sold at a loss

He didn't make too many appearances at the second-half of the season. I had better strikers in form.

He was signed as a rotation player, a useful AM/F C who could play in various roles for me, signed as a bit of an impulse buy from rivals Napoli who had gone into bankruptcy. Napoli went away the happiest from the deal.

I suppose with a name containing "Andriy", I should have been more careful!

Obasi. He almost never finished a game due to his poor performances. Sold him after 1 1/2 season with 250k profit. I'll never buy him again.

A young Croat gen when getting established in the premiership on 09, though at the time he was superior to anyone I had, he kept doing awfully (I've rarely seen someone get ratings or 6.0 or less on a regular basis like he did) though I gave him more chances than I would any other player and after a couple of months I gave up, I gave him chances late in the season and he got a couple which rescued his stats a fair bit but it was an awful debut, admitedly he was stuggling with english (and I nearly always give a player a second season), and he lasted a few more years, proving himself to not be a bad player (he often got pretty good ratings when not scoring) though he had a tendency to score a decent amount from october to march and hardly at all the rest of the time. Not terrible but nowhere near as good as he should have been, though interestingly these tendencies made him interesting and memorable (he was even a 'favoured personnel' of the club'), much more so than more reliable players I had. Also had (much later in the same save) a Belgian defender who didn't plunge the depths of the other guy but was still consistently underwhelming (though not outright poor) to be considered a failure twice for me (having got him for 20M the second time). Mainly though 'flops' have been players who have been kept out of the side a lot after being bought for a fair bit rather than those who have played and done very badly.

After 10 years with wootton bassett, finally got promoted to premiership. Board gave me ~20mil on transfers, so i bought a wonderkid central defender for 26mil. Now, after 11 games his rating is 5.5! and my team conceded 34 goals!! by far worst in the league... His previous seasons in russian league was 8.3 and 7.8... His wage is massive 26k p/w (compared with team average - 5/6k p/w). If nothing changes, bankrupt is possible...

Romelu Lukaku for £60million, well so far anyway...

Signing Moussa Sissoko in the 3rd season for 50mil Euro and then use him 9 seasons in a pure defensive role. 10th season (at age 31) I gave him a more offensive role and he ended up scoring as much goals in that season as the other 9 together. So only realising after 9 seasons that you used him completely wrong is painful

Signing Moussa Sissoko in the 3rd season for 50mil Euro and then use him 9 seasons in a pure defensive role. 10th season (at age 31) I gave him a more offensive role and he ended up scoring as much goals in that season as the other 9 together. So only realising after 9 seasons that you used him completely wrong is painful

Does that not then make you the flop?

Franck Ribery signed for £32m average ratings of 6 per game, sometimes low as 3. And I'll probably get lynched for this but on 09 Igor Akinfeev (£30m) was totally useless for me, sold him to Barcelona had European GK of the year. Typical

gignac. only cost me €7,5m but underperformed for an entire season

for me i had 2 in fm10

Aguero - £52m as it was minimum release clause - 26 games on now 3 goals and average rating of 5.1

Neymar - £44m - 23 games on now 1 goal and average rating of 5.8

unfortunately these arent working for me - i signed them on my bristol city save and they were an amazing strikeforce but just not working for me now.