Earlier this week we took a look at which clubs had the best ever single summer transfer windows , with perhaps a surprise team at the top.
But as a man in a Cameron Crowe film (probably a man in all of them, I stopped paying attention after Vanilla Sky) once said, without the sour, you can't appreciate the sweet.
So here's the sour. Here's the teams that got it horribly wrong. We're not talking sides that signed one bust or a middlingly average, uninspiring set of signings that failed to get the pulses going and didn't preform, but the bone fide disasters. The ones that set their teams back a year or two, the ones who wrecked a potential title challenge or got their sides relegated.
Because, let's face it, it's more fun isn't it? Unless you're a Liverpool or Manchester United fan, of course.
So without further ado, here's the ten worst summer transfer windows that a club has had in the Premier League. To make matter simple, we're only considering players coming in.
ICYMI: 10 best-ever transfer windows
10. Norwich 2013
Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Javier Garrido, Nathan Redmond, Martin Olsson, Carlo Nash, Leroy Fer, Gary Hooper
Life was looking pretty good for the Canaries at the turn of the decade. After finishing 12th and 11th in the Premier League, Delia's side splashed the cash, mainly looking for goals, with their leading scorer of the previous four years Grant Holt beginning to show his age.
The club broke their transfer record to bring in Ricky van Wolfswinkel from Sporting, while Gary Hooper finally made the move from Scotland to the Premier League.
When the season ended however, no team had scored less than the 28 league goals that the Canaries could muster, with £8.5million-signing Van Wolfswinkel scoring once in the league. So for all you non-maths fans, that's £8.5million per goal.
Relegation followed as a three-year spell in the top flight came to a close and it's largely down to the Canaries' poor summer dealings.
9. Chelsea 2010
Yossi Benayoun, Tomas Kalas, Ramires, Matej Delac
Chelsea’s inclusion here is as much about who the Blues didn’t sign that summer. A very average crop arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2010, with the £22million that was shelled out for Ramires looking too steep.
Sure, Chelsea had just won their third Premier League crown, but there was a storm coming in the shape of Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, who had just ended their 35-year wait for a trophy when they lifted the FA Cup at the start of that summer.
Chelsea had been used to generally having it their own way in the transfer market, with no other Premier League teams being able to consistently compete with them financially for the previous seven years.
But while Abramovic’s roubles bought in a fairly underwhelming set of new players, City would bring in a vintage crop, including Yaya Toure, David Silva and James Milner, who would be the bedrock of their two title-winning sides. It would take four years and the return of Jose Mourinho for Chelsea to again overtake City after this summer.
8. Newcastle 2013
Olivier Kemen, Loic Remy (loan), Luuk de Jong (loan )
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Mike Ashley’s name would appear on this list. The summer of 2013 saw the Newcastle owner at the peak of his nonchalance towards the Magpies’ staff’s attempts to build anything that was more than a club that wouldn’t get relegated.
Rather than build on their fifth place finish in 2011-12, the Toon didn’t spend big, but then 12 months later, they barely spent at all. The only money that changed hands was a £350,000 for Metz youngster Olivier Kemen, who has failed to do anything in a black and white shirt, as the seeds for last season’s battle against the drop were laid out.
7. Manchester United 2013
Marouane Fellaini, Guillermo Varlea
It's the start of the 2013 summer window and Manchester United are at a crossroads. Gone is the most dominant figure in the club's history, so what better way to embrace he future by splashing the cash and re-energising a squad that most certainly had gaps to plug, despite having just landed a record-breaking 19th title.
And what they got was... Marouane Fellaini. For more money than they needed to, thanks to their dithering. The blame was largely placed a new chief executive Ed Woodward's door, as he proved that you can't just learn complex international transfer negotiation on the job.
But it was David Moyes who would pay the price, as it would transpire that there were plenty of get-out clauses in the six-year deal he signed at Old Trafford and he was gone before the end of the season.
The general consensus now is that plenty of Moyes' targets have indeed arrived at Old Trafford, as the former Everton boss had done his homework, but Louis van Gaal is the man to enjoy the fruits of his predecessors' labours.
6. QPR 2012
Ryan Nelsen, Andy Johnson, Robert Green, Samba Diakite, Park Ji-Sung, Junior Hoilett, Jose Bosingwa, Julio Cesar, Esteban Granero, Sam Magri, Stephane Mbia
Where to begin with this lot? After just managing to stay up the season before, Mark Hughes was given a whole heap of cash to splash and nine months later QPR finished the season bottom of the pile.
Opting largely for experience, QPR got their hands on either ill-motivated mercenaries seeking a big pay day or players whose legs had gone, as the west London side got no value out of their highly-paid crop that summer.
This dour summer window was exacerbated in the January window, when new boss Harry Redknapp repeated the Hoops' trick from the summer, with the likes of Tal Ben Haim and Christopher Samba coming in to stink the place out.
5. Liverpool 2014
Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Divock Origi, Emre Can, Lazar Markovic, Dejan Lovren, Javier Manquillo, Alberto Moreno, Matio Balotelli
So, the whole point of this exercise is to prove that you shouldn't make snap judgements about a single batch of new recruits, as only time will tell whether or not they've been a hit or not.
But come on, Liverpool's summer recruitment last year was a disaster. Richie Lambert was treated like a competition winner, Markovic didn't show any of the potential that made the Reds splash £20m, Lallana never got going, Lovren was a shadow of the player he was last season, Origi was voted in the worst Ligue 1 team of the season and as for Mario Balotelli... well, I was always taught that if you don't have anything nice to say about anyone, say nothing at all. And not in a Ronan Keating way.
The fact remains that their best new arrival (Emre Can) has a succeeded in a position that he wasn't supposed to play in and the Reds went from one slip away from the title, back to Thursday night Europa League action in fell swoop.
4. Manchester City 2012
Jack Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Maicon, Matija Nastasic, Scott Sinclair, Richard Wright
The narrative that drives Rocky III is that of complacency. The champ rests on his laurels, failing to take his title defences seriously, while his chief rival Clubber Lang powers up and defeats him. That is exactly what happened to Manchester City after they memorably won their first Premier League title in 2012.
For a club where money was literally no object, their summer recruitment was led by Jack Rodwell, who, fair enough, was a promising young player, but hardly made the squad stronger. Nor did a past-it Maicon, who was still no doubt waking up in cold sweats with the thought of Gareth Bale rinsing him down his right flank in England. While Manchester Unites brought in Robin van Persie and Shinji Kagawa among others, complacency did indeed get the better of City and their title was soon gone.
3. Liverpool 2002
Bruno Cheyrou, El-Hadji Diouf, Alou Diarra, Patrice Luzi, Salif Diao
Or, why you should never get too excited while you're at home watching the World Cup.Gerard Houllier spent the summer of 2002 figuring out how to a) improve on last season’s second-place finish and b) get the most out this newly introduced transfer window system.
He failed at both. Senegal’s run to quarter-finals got plenty of scouts giddy and it was Liverpool that took the plunge, snagging El-Hadji Diouf and Salif Diao for a combined £15million. Diouf never got going in a Red shirt, while Diao was described by Jamie Carragher as a ‘catastrophe’ in his autobiography, when he recalls a conversation they had where he tried to get his team-mate to join Everton.
Bruno Cheyrou was a textbook woolly Houllier signing, while Alou Diarra never turned out in a Liverpool shirt. The Reds finished the next season fifth and it was back to the drawing board again.
2. Manchester United 2007
Owen Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson, Tomasz Kuszczak
In Nani's case, was Fergie still giddy on the fumes of Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer? Sure, Nani would sometimes hit the heights, but for the money that United shelled out at that time, you were perfectly entitled to expect consistency from the get-go. This transfer is made to look worse by the club's decision to furnish the Portuguese with a new contract 18 months ago.
Anderson burst onto the scene as an exciting wing player, all pace and power on either side of an attacking three, but soon looked disinterested as he piled on the pounds and was the victim of numerous injuries. Oh, and talking of injuries, you have to feel for Owen Hargreaves. What looked like a very good signing turned into a bust, as the England midfielder just wasn't able to get any significant playing time under his belt, so this has to go down as a flop.
What Fergie did have to his advantage though, was that he was buying from a position of strength and could call on his final truly great squad to absorb these not-so-stellar signings, as Ronaldo had his best season in a United shirt and Premier League and Champions League wins followed.
1. Tottenham 2013
Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Roberto Soldado, Etenne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela
Ah, the age old problem of how to replace your one superstar. Do you throw money at a like-for-like replacement or invest in number of players to improve the depth of your squad?
Juventus offered the template for he latter strategy after they sold Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid in 2001, reinvesting in the likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thruam and Pavel Nedved. Perhaps this is what inspired Daniel Levy,as the £80million Bale swag saw seven new faces, as Spurs kept breaking their transfer record.
And what do they have to show for it? Well, Christian Eriksen's good. And that's about it. Capoue, Chadli and Paulinho have been a whole heap of average, while Soldado and Lamela will likely be in the conversation for biggest Premier League flop of the decade. The climb down has started now in fact, with Spurs set to go about disassembling their £100m hau l.
