Ranking the Biggest Current Stars Who Flopped in the Premier League

The Premier League is the richest league in the world, and with big transfer budgets come big-money signings. The best of the best are attracted, but not every deal pans out as planned.

Some great players have passed through England's top tier and failed to spark. Sometimes that happens—it's life—but the infuriating thing is when they go on to reach stardom elsewhere. That's what leaves a bitter taste in fans' mouths.

Here, we've collated a list of current world football stars and high-level performers who ranged between disappointing and terrible in the Premier League. Some of the career turnarounds are remarkable.

They're ranked based on the difference in performance levels from Premier League to elsewhere. The bigger the gap, the higher they're ranked.

20. Stevan Jovetic

Jovetic flashed some brilliance at Manchester City, but he came nowhere close to replicating the levels he'd shown at Fiorentina. It's a shame, really, as we know he's capable of winning games on his own—just look at his performances for Sevilla this past half-season for proof.

19. Shinji Kagawa

Was heralded as the playmaker to transform Manchester United back in 2012, but Sir Alex Ferguson misused him and he struggled for game time, sparking the #FreeShinji movement on Twitter. Ultimately he was a huge disappointment.

18. Federico Fazio

Fazio was slow, cumbersome and an all-round terrible fit for the Premier League. Tottenham fans can barely believe it when they're informed he started 35 Serie A games in 2016-17 and helped Roma to second place in the league.

17. Kostas Mitroglou

Mitroglou's stint at Fulham was truly strange. He cost them around £12 million one January, barely featured, then left on a series of loans. Wherever he's been he's plundered goals regularly—he's won eight domestic titles!—except Fulham.

16. Roberto Soldado

Tottenham identified Soldado as the man to replace Gareth Bale's goals once he'd left for Real Madrid, but the Spaniard flopped spectacularly. He scored just six goals in his debut Premier League season, most of which were from the spot, and by 2015 had been sold off to Villarreal.

He's been a good, steady performer for them, at least.

15. Florian Thauvin

Newcastle United's experiences with Ligue 1 imports under Alan Pardew were certainly mixed, and while Yohan Cabaye represents one end of the scale, Florian Thauvin represents the other. Compare his outings for the Magpies with what he's doing for Marseille and you'd struggle to believe it's the same player.

14. Suso

There were big expectations for Suso at Liverpool with plenty seeing great potential in him. That faith was hardly misplaced, but it's only now, at Milan, that we're seeing him blossom and become a star wide playmaker.

13. Giovani dos Santos

He arrived at Tottenham from Barcelona with a big reputation, and it was thought he'd transform Juande Ramos' side for the better. But the biggest success Dos Santos enjoyed in England was a short loan spell with Ipswich Town before being dispensed with permanently in 2012. The Mexican reinvented himself with Villarreal, is a star man for LA Galaxy now and is closing in on 100 caps for his country.

12. Borja Valero

Valero joined Tony Mowbray's West Bromwich Albion in 2008 for a club-record fee, but things went south pretty fast. He didn't adapt well, and his manager's tactics really didn't suit him, so it wasn't long before he was loaned out. Fast forward to 2017 and he's Fiorentina's midfield maestro, revered across Europe for his metronomic passing.

11. Filipe Luis

Another one who perhaps wasn't given a fair crack of the whip, but he didn't reach his Atletico Madrid levels at Chelsea. He spent just one season at Stamford Bridge, returned to the Spanish capital, and promptly re-entered his name into the conversation of best left-backs in the world.

Mohamed Salah was greatly misused at Chelsea—or, at least, that's what Liverpool fans are hoping given their club just spent north of £30 million on him.

Signed in January 2014 after ripping the Blues apart in European competition for Basel, he featured far less often than he was expected to under Jose Mourinho and was loaned to Fiorentina within 12 months. He picked up where he left off with Basel for them, then did the same for Roma, and he has now cost Jurgen Klopp a pretty penny.

So what went wrong at Chelsea?

Most likely, he ran into the same roadblock many wingers do under Mourinho. He asks them to work exceptionally hard and commit to the defensive side of the game—a set of tasks which, at the time, did not suit Salah at all.

Andrej Kramaric's dramatic January 2015 saw him attract interest from all over Europe, and he rejected Chelsea's advances in order to opt for Leicester City, per Vecernji List (h/t the MailOnline). He signed for a then-club-record £9 million.

What followed was a rather muted five months, in which Kramaric contributed very little to the Foxes' remarkable survival story. He struggled to break into the team, then took a complete back seat under Claudio Ranieri in 2015-16.

A loan to Hoffenheim perked him up, and, having signed him permanently last season, he led the club to a Champions League berth, top-scoring for the team in the Bundesliga with 15 goals. That's the Kramaric Leicester thought they'd signed.

Daniel Carrico's career reads strangely. 

He's a Sporting CP youth graduate and made more than 100 appearances for the club, and he has tasted Europa League success with Sevilla no less than three times. He's even captained los Rojiblancos at times.

But in the middle of all that, there's a bizarre half-season to forget. In January 2013, Carrico joined Reading from Sporting for less than €1 million. Hopes were high that Brian McDermott had found a bargain, but he played just 86 minutes—making one start—and the club were relegated. He was essentially deemed inferior to Adrian Mariappa and Alex Pearce.

A loan to Sevilla followed, and that was made permanent a year later. It's fair to say he hasn't looked back.

Juan Cuadrado looked positively hapless during his sporadic cameos for Chelsea in 2015-16. He wasn't given a run of games by Jose Mourinho and looked entirely lacking in confidence whenever he was sent onto the pitch—often as a late substitute.

But then he'd go away and play brilliantly for Colombia before returning to Stamford Bridge and struggle to control a football. Blues fans were left frustrated and perplexed by the matter.

Like Mohamed Salah before him, a loan to Serie A restored his abilities. For Juventus he's been a brilliant outlet on the right, and played a big part in getting them to the Champions League final this season—even if he did get sent off in the final.

At the end of June, Marca revealed something that shook the Twittersphere: Barcelona are interested in legendary Tottenham flop Paulinho.

Premier League fans could barely believe it. The Brazilian, who arrived with a big reputation, took up a significant chunk of the Gareth Bale money and the pressure was on him to perform. He scarcely did.

Guangzhou Evergrande came to the rescue in 2015, paying Tottenham £10 million to take him off their bill. Spurs fans were relieved, but he's actually blossomed as a player in China, and he commands a starting role in a Brazil national team that's fancied as one of the world's best.

How about that for a turnaround?

Iago Aspas is the poster boy for the premise of this article. He's gone from the most maligned man in Merseyside, unable to take a corner properly, to the star of a very strong Celta Vigo side.

His performances for the La Liga outfit over the last two seasons have been nothing short of excellent; 14 and 19-goal hauls in the league have helped Celta to respectable finishes, and he was a big part of their run to the Europa League semi-finals in 2016-17.

What on earth happened at Liverpool is anyone's guess. Brendan Rodgers was guilty of misusing a number of players and Aspas was certainly one of them, but the difference in performance levels witnessed at the two clubs borders on the ridiculous.

Stefan Savic only lasted a year in the Premier League, moving to Manchester City in the summer of 2011 and departing for Fiorentina 12 months later.

It was a season in which Vincent Kompany struggled with injury at the same time as Kolo Toure left for the Africa Cup of Nations. Savic was meant to step into the void, but he lacked confidence and made a slew of errors. City still won the title, and he still got a medal, but no one was convinced.

Look at him now, though, and he is a completely different player. Starting for Atletico Madrid in Champions League semi-finals, holding Jose Gimenez out of the team and contributing heavily toward the best defence in La Liga. The difference in performance levels is vast.

Jerome Boateng's success for Bayern Munich and Germany must make some Manchester City fans sick to the stomach. They had him on their books for the 2010-2011 season, but things didn't work out as planned.

The German spent the majority of his time at right-back and also suffered a bizarre knee injury at the beginning of the campaign, making life difficult. You could tell there was a quality player tucked up in there, but rarely did he play that well.

Just a year after signing him, City granted his wish to move back to Germany, made a small profit on him, but essentially handed one of the world's best centre-backs to Bayern Munich on a platter. Whoops.

Angel Di Maria will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in Premier League history. 

He arrived at Manchester United as a Champions League winner, man of the match in the final for Real Madrid, in a deal worth just shy of £60 million. A year before, he'd finished runner-up in the World Cup as a key part of a formidable Argentina side.

What could go wrong?

Well, lots of things, apparently. Louis van Gaal misused him to an extent, moving him all around the formation and not allowing him to settle into a position, and off-field problems blurred his focus.

The following summer, Paris Saint-Germain ended his Manchester nightmare, and he's re-found his top level. 2017, in particular, has been fantastic for him.

Loan signings wouldn't usually count, but Radamel Falcao had two season-long cracks at the Premier League and failed in both attempts.

Watching him stumble around for Manchester United and Chelsea was quite a discomforting experience, as a severe knee injury played a serious part in knocking him off his stride. What he needed was support and time; what he got was the glare of the big-money Premier League focus that takes no prisoners.

Falcao's turnaround has been quite something. Last season he managed 21 Ligue 1 goals from 22 starts, helping Monaco to the title, and he netted five in the Champions League en route to the semi-finals—a haul which included a glorious lob against Manchester City.

He's one of the world's top predatory strikers again, but few will forget his bizarre, ill-fated two-year stint in England that made him look more like an amateur than the elite goalscorer he truly is.

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All statistics via WhoScored.com and Transfermarkt.co.uk