Last summer, the Premier League became home to an influx of imported talent. Through the holiday period, those imports put the league on notice. As the ground thaws, however, several of England's new arrival have remained cold
Thus, Nick Miller has compiled a list of the 10 players who took the Premier League by storm upon their arrivals only to fail to live up to their initial lofty standards.
10. Mario Stanic
The key to making an impact in the Premier League is to start with a bang, and there have been few louder bangs than Mario Stanic's first impression for Chelsea. The Croatian made his debut on the opening day of the 2000-01 season against West Ham and casually scored a brace, but that's only the half of it. One of those goals was what can only be described as a "blooter," picking up the ball around 40 yards from goal, juggling with it for a little while before launching a phenomenal volley over the head of the stranded Shaka Hislop in the West Ham goal.
However, he promptly got injured, barely played again that season and made only another 38 starts for Chelsea over the next four campaigns. But even if he had played more, he would never have reached the heights of that first goal.
9. Graziano Pelle
Something of a punchline in his native Italy, Graziano Pelle finally started to be taken seriously after scoring an absurd number of goals for Feyenoord in the Netherlands. To be precise, 55 goals in 66 games, prompting Southampton to pay £8 million for him, That looked like a snip in the early days of this season, as Pelle took a liking to Premier League defences by notching nine times in his first 12 games.
He then hit something of a dry spell, and has managed just one goal in all competitions (and none in the league) since December, eventually leading to being dropped for the trip to Chelsea last Sunday. Of course, Pelle might discover his touch again at some point, but at the moment it looks like his goals in the Eredivisie should be treated with the same suspicion as those from Afonso Alves and Mateja Kezman.
8. Nigel Clough
When Nottingham Forest were relegated in 1993, what passed for the quality in their squad was picked off and bought, with Roy Keane going to Manchester United and Nigel Clough moving to Liverpool. Clough scored twice on his debut and had four goals to his name by the end of August.
After that life got a little more complicated, his cause not helped by the emergence of Robbie Fowler, a teenage goal machine who announced himself by scoring five against Fulham in the League Cup. There was a brief flicker of his talent when he scored two against Manchester United in early January, but his appearances dwindled and was eventually sold on to Manchester City, where his playing career petered out until he took the player-manager's job at Burton Albion, aged just 32.
7. Andrey Arshavin
The decline of some players can be explained by injury, general fitness, personal problems or simple lack of consistent ability, but Andrey Arshavin's Arsenal career will perhaps forever remain something of a mystery. The little Russian looked like the real deal after arriving at the Emirates, following a drawn-out saga in 2009, scoring all four of Arsenal's goals in a 4-4 draw at Liverpool that season and generally playing like the world-class player Arsene Wenger's side had been missing.
Eventually, though, his effectiveness waned and he found himself out of the team. On the rare occasions he was selected he seemed listless and half the player he used to be. There were moments of the old Arshavin, most notably when he scored the winner against Barcelona in the Champions League -- celebrating by revealing a t-shirt showing him celebrating -- but they were few and far between, and he eventually returned to Zenit St. Petersburg, first on loan and then permanently.
6. Robinho
On transfer deadline day in 2008, two forces of desperation came together: Sheikh Mansour had just bought Manchester City and was desperate to make a splash and sign a superstar, while Robinho was desperate to get out of Real Madrid. He arrived at City with great fanfare, and actually lived up to the hype initially, scoring a brilliant free kick on his debut and notching another 11 goals in the following 18 games.
Eventually the goals dried up, his relationship with new manager Roberto Mancini was non-existent and he became a fraction of his talent and reputation, moping around Manchester until he was ushered back to Santos on loan. Since then he has showed flashes of his old skill at Milan and again at Santos, but it's tough to say his career since those early days at City is anything other than a disappointment.
5. Billy Kenny
It's easy to chuckle at some of the names on this list, but not Billy Kenny, one of the great lost talents of English football. Kenny made his debut for Everton aged 19 but immediately looked like he not only belonged but would run every game he played in. He was man of the match in his first Merseyside derby (his fifth league start), was thought by many to be one of the best young talents they'd ever seen and Peter Beardsley nicknamed him "The Goodison Gazza," which turned out to be a sadly apposite moniker.
His problems started with a spell out with shin splints, when bored and unburdened by the need to stay fit he filled the time and void with booze and drugs, which would inevitably impact on his football. "Some mornings I got home at four or five, had a couple of lines of cocaine, slept for an hour and then went to training," he said. "Sometimes I could hardly see the ball. I was a joke." He was sacked by Everton, tried again with Oldham but played his last game aged just 21.
4. Ritchie Humphreys
Many players have made prolific starts to their careers before crashing and burning, but not too many will have made more spectacular ones than Ritchie Humphreys at Sheffield Wednesday. Brought up through the youth ranks at Hillsborough, Humphreys was given his chance in the opening weeks of the 1996-97 season after David Hirst and Mark Bright suffered injuries, and made his mark with a pair of absolutely sensational strikes. The first was a thunderous volley on the opening day against Aston Villa, a strike clocked at a whopping 95.9 mph,. The other was a more delicate effort, as he waltzed through the Leicester defence and scored with a beautifully measured chip.
Stardom beckoned, but he would only score once more for Wednesday in the league that season, and only twice before leaving in 2001, following long spells out of the team and two loan moves to Scunthorpe United and Cardiff City. He eventually settled at Hartlepool United and became something of a cult hero, helping United to a couple of promotions and even having a street named after him in the town.
3. Adrian Mutu
The summer of 2003 was a frantic one at Stamford Bridge, as Roman Abramovich's massive chequebook funded the signings of 15 players for somewhere north of £150 million. One of the acquisitions that those in the know predicted big things for was Adrian Mutu, signed from Parma after an impressive start to his Serie A career at Verona. And those sages looked like they knew what they were talking about as the Romanian started brilliantly for Chelsea, scoring on his debut and in the two subsequent games, and generally looking like £15.8 million very well spent.
However, his form started to wane and in the autumn of 2004 he failed a drugs test, which not only led to his dismissal by Chelsea but the club pursuing him for damages as he tried to rebuild his career. There have been brief moments since that have suggested he was back, but unconvincing spells at various clubs, another failed test and assorted other off-field problems meant he never lived up to that early promise.
2. Amr Zaki
In the early years of their spell in the Premier League, Wigan was a place where gems were uncovered and, more often than not, sold on at a profit. That looked like it would be the case for Amr Zaki, who signed on loan from Egyptian side Zamalek and immediately started going about his business, scoring on his debut and bagging 11 goals before the turn of the year. Wigan chairman Dave Whelan, ever the salesman, even likened him to Alan Shearer.
But his 11th would be the last time he scored for the Latics and after a disagreement with then-manager Steve Bruce that saw him labelled the least professional player the manager had ever worked with, he was sent back to Zamalek. A brief loan spell with Hull came a few years later, but the time since has been spent shuttling between a smorgasbord of clubs -- seven in all, since 2010. He now plays for El Mokawloon back home in Egypt.
1. Federico Macheda
It must be strange when your career peaks 20 minutes into it and before you're legally old enough to drink. In the closing stages of the 2008-09 season, Manchester United were heading to a damaging defeat by Aston Villa, when Sir Alex Ferguson threw on Federico Macheda for his debut. The gamble of course paid off with some gusto, the 17-year-old sweeping home a brilliant last-minute winner, and a bright future beckoned.
He scored another in his next game (via a massive deflection against Sunderland) but would only find the net twice more for United (one in another late comeback against Villa) before being shipped out on loan to no fewer than five clubs over three years -- scoring for just two of them. He signed for Cardiff permanently in the summer and is proving to be a reasonable Championship forward, but in those opening moments, his career promised so much more.
Nick Miller is a football writer for ESPN FC, The Guardian, Eurosport and a number of other publications. Follow him on Twitter @NickMiller79.
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