Biggest 'Flop' Signings since Summer 2015:

[PeteWorrell]

Bakayoko isn't even the worst CM Chelsea brought in that season, Drinkwater was a far far far worse signing than Bakayoko was.

Drinkwater cannot ever go on loan without messing things up. Nightclub incident while at Burnley and training ground altercation while at Aston Villa. Crazy that Leicester won the Premier League with this guy and were able to sell him for a good price.

 

[Chimaera]

Bakayoko isn't even the worst CM Chelsea brought in that season, Drinkwater was a far far far worse signing than Bakayoko was.

Clearly. Though some of that is relative to the fact that Chelsea somehow are going to get a good chunk of their money back for him.

 

[Blender]

Clearly. Though some of that is relative to the fact that Chelsea somehow are going to get a good chunk of their money back for him.

Bakayoko has been good while out on loan. He was a terrible fit for Chelsea, but I would bet he would do better under Lampard as I think it suits his play style better than Conte or Sarri did.

 

[les Habs]

Goals+Assists is basically all Coutinho brings though.

He’s not tracking back and defending, he’s not patrolling the midfield and winning the ball. If he’s not getting goal contributions, he’s basically not contributing in any meaningful way.

There's more to a player's game than that and it still doesn't change the point. The quality players that would be worthless with that line of reasoning is laughable.

 

[S E P H]

I'm not going to dispute Coutinho because off the top of my head he has to be up there, but a few things:

• I'd want to see a breakdown of the transfer as I know there were variables. Easily obtained variables, but variables nonetheless. Also the club received an 8.5 million loan fee from Bayern for this season. Not a lot, but factors in for me.
• 75 matches in a season and a half is a lot of matches.
• Pretty dumb to put a price on the goals scored by a midfielder. A striker I'd understand. Either way his stats are good for a season and a half for a midfielder. The problem is that stats don't equal performance.

I agree I think the breakdown of the entire transfer is needed, but even so what we have is 130 million for 75 games and deeming it as "a lot of matches" is....strange to me and not even close to justifying his amount. And saying it was dumb to put a price on goals is also strange since what does he do besides that? I actually agree that midfielders should be creating chances and whatnot, but it's been discussed in depth that he's not a prototypical #10, he plays more as a SS and free kick specialist than anything else. He's a goalscoring midfield much more than an Ozil, Xavi, Modric, or de Bruyne. It seems to me that Barca watched like one game that Coutinho played where he was superb, then they closed off all their other targets, and put all their resources on that one match thinking they were getting the next gem-Kaka-2.0-from-Brasi-player with Phil.

 

[les Habs]

I agree I think the breakdown of the entire transfer is needed, but even so what we have is 130 million for 75 games and deeming it as "a lot of matches" is....strange to me and not even close to justifying his amount. And saying it was dumb to put a price on goals is also strange since what does he do besides that? I actually agree that midfielders should be creating chances and whatnot, but it's been discussed in depth that he's not a prototypical #10, he plays more as a SS and free kick specialist than anything else. He's a goalscoring midfield much more than an Ozil, Xavi, Modric, or de Bruyne. It seems to me that Barca watched like one game that Coutinho played where he was superb, then they closed off all their other targets, and put all their resources on that one match thinking they were getting the next gem-Kaka-2.0-from-Brasi-player with Phil.

For starters, I wasn't justifying his amount. If I was doing that then why would I write "I'm not going to dispute Coutinho" in terms of the thread topic? As for 75 matches, read the whole sentence. I wrote "75 matches in a season and a half is a lot of matches." If you want to dispute 75 matches is a lot of matches in a season and a half, and note during that half season he wasn't eligible for a competition, then go right ahead. Plays as SS? Free kick specialist? Well news flash, that's not how he played for us and he didn't take many free kicks at all.