Premier League teams average about five major transfers per season, totaling roughly 100 transfers per year and 1,000 per decade. Research indicates only about half of new signings start at least half of matches, implying roughly 500 successful and 500 unsuccessful transfers across ten years. Common preventable causes of failure include tactical misfits, paying for past performance, misjudging which skills are predictable, and ignoring age curves. Many failures remain unpredictable due to the sport's complexity and external factors. Even the most informed clubs can only modestly improve success rates, and solid processes can still produce poor outcomes.
Let's say that the average Premier League team makes around five major transfers per season. So, that's 100 transfers in the league per year, and 1,000 transfers per decade. Research has shown that only about 50% of new players start at least 50% of matches for their new clubs. If we use that low threshold as the standard for success, then over 10 years, about 500 new players succeed and 500 fail.
Given all of that, it makes sense that there would still be a lot of well thought out, value-driven, nicely executed transfers that still don't work. Good processes can lead to bad results, just like bad processes can lead to good results. So, with the transfer window only a few days from closing, let's look at some of the best transfers from the past 10 years that still failed.
Collection
[
|
...
]