Pence and shillings - Premier League’s recent bad businesses
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| Nicolas Pepe scoring from the penalty spot against Aston Villa in the Premier League. |
It’s always easy in the eye when Premier League fans clamor for a certain name to join their squad.
For bragging rights, change in fortunes or just for the feel-good factor.
From the deadline day hustles and the so-called easy transfers, we chronicle some names that drew huge tattoos of goosebumps on many but underwhelming, to say the least on the pitch, where it mattered most, from the pool of many that joined in the summer of 2019.
Nicolas Pepe
Arsenal fans will disagree, but 72million Pounds on an Ivorian from Lille will forever be too much in any Arsenal context for a player to only pride himself in flicks and nutmegs with the next-to-nothing end product.
When Pepe was handed the ball for a spot-kick at home to Aston Villa, many thought that was the push he needed.
It didn’t happen and beyond the fortuitous strike against a very poor Manchester United side, dribbling past Virgil Van Dijk remains the only star on a very ugly crown for Nicolas Pepe.
Maybe he needs time to settle, maybe he needs a firmer type of coaching, or maybe he needs to be sold to a team like PSG that has lots of money they aren’t needing soon.
If Arsenal will ever return to the top of English football and make any strong statement in Europe, they have to move past players who don’t want to win.
No disrespect, Nicolas Pepe, every match-day keeps looking like a complete waste of money the team doesn’t really have.
Joelinton
When news broke out that Steve Bruce had been handed the managerial job at Newcastle, many penciled them straight away for the drop and was only a matter of who was joining them.
A few months later, despite a very good job done by the unfancied English man, the team still looks like one that would be involved in the scrap.
Thankfully, many teams around them aren’t looking better so they have a chance.
But if there’s one name that doesn’t look like helping in the cause for survival, that must be the lanky Brazilian forward, Joelinton.
Apart from the fact that he’s not scoring, he’s occupying space and doing nothing with it.
His hold up play is weak, links up like an amateur and would definitely not be anywhere near the starting line up if options surface.
The hope he brought has faded into disappointments and lots of questions from the fans who watched the management helplessly as Solomon Rondon slipped from their grasps when it looked easier to keep him from a relegated Sunderland.
Newcastle have a huge chance of survival, they’d rather turn to Dwight Gayle and Miguel Almiron, Joelinton isn’t any way better than Andy Carrol to be very honest
Seb Haller
There’s a reason a club would go all out and make you their record signing, it’s not for you to score when you feel like.
Goals for you shouldn’t be like the Christmas feeling that comes once a year.
Of course, if you are not Christian Benteke, you should know exactly where the goal post is.
And even more mandatorily if you’re a striker, then you shouldn’t be what Seb Haller is at West Ham right now.
Some would argue that Haller isn’t an out and out striker.
Struggling to find a good case for such an argument but with the materials around at the London Stadium, Manuel Lanzini, Mikail Antonio, Robert Snodgrass and what have you, there are no excuses for you Seb, none whatsoever.
If you think this is harsh, ask those that captain the Frenchman week in week out in the popular fantasy football game.
They will tell you how close they are to the relegation zone in their respective leagues.
Stats may truly be like miniskirts but whatever it says for Haller is true, few goals, few assists and West Ham flirting with the drop, come on that money could have been better spent but David Moyes won’t bother, he didn’t sign him.
Wesley
Yes, he’s injured, go on and make beautiful excuses, but like a bad government, everyone will pay for it.
Dear Wesley, wherever you are as you try to heal, we wish you all the very best but if you care to know what we have in your scorecard… it’s an E!
And that’s not entertainment, nope, no Kardashians, the Brazilian has been poor, to say the least.
Even on days he scores, he manages to ruin it with something avoidable, like missing a penalty to complete a hattrick or getting injured when he could just have jumped, well maybe that was harsh.
When Aston Villa broke their transfer records to land the Brazilian forward, everyone thought they got the man to lead them to survival, take Jack Grealish away from the Villa Park Landlords and they’d have been relegated since November.
They will go down anyway and we won’t feel sorry for them; remember the misfortune of Cardiff last season?
Wesley won’t be anywhere close to the pitch this season anymore with a bad injury, hurts and painful for the fans, hope he finds the serenity to join them in the Championship next season as they try for promotion again.
Moise Kean
The supposed golden boy of Italian football is lost in England.
Looking like he missed a big opportunity to go back home like Patrick Cutrone did at Wolves, another waste of precious season ticket holders’ money.
While this article delayed his name till the last as Everton hosted Palace at Goodison, hoping Moise Kean would come on and score twice to have him not show up here, he wasn’t even deemed needed as the Toffees blew Roy Hodgson’s men away emphatically.
After making bold statements in the Serie A where he rose above racism to drive home his points, he has been as anonymous as the g in morning.
Hoping he’ll wake up to the reality of whatever he needs to do to be better, to be enough and to be a predator that yours truly thought he’d be.
He’s probably not the worst ever signing in the summer window, but not many came with the potential that flew with him, from being a teammate to arguably the best ever, Cristiano Ronaldo, to been an unused substitute on a day Djibril Sidibe was preferred to him… Fall from grace?
