-
News
- 8 hours ago
The 10 worst signings of the season across Europe
31 May 2026 03:01 CDT |
9 min read
News
Another season has come and gone and, with that, the debut campaigns of a number of big-money signings from last summer who were hoping to make a strong impact at their new clubs.
FootballTransfers takes a look at 10 of the worst signings across Europe from last summer.
Alvaro Carreras – €50m to Real Madrid (from Benfica)
On the surface, spending €50m to bring home an academy-bred youngster to plug a long-term problem is a sensible transfer and there has been nothing intrinsically ‘wrong’ with Real Madrid’s purchase of Alvaro Carreras.
However, Carreras has so far struggled to establish himself as the elite left-back that Real Madrid needs and it perhaps says a lot that the 23-year-old often found himself benched for fringe players such as Ferland Mendy and Fran Garcia.
Carreras’ difficult situation was exacerbated when he was involved in a dressing room bust-up with a teammate – believed to be Antonio Rudiger – while his attitude has also been called into question.
Despite his big money move, Carreras also failed to break into Spain’s national team and, as such, missed out on a place at the 2026 World Cup, highlighting the progress the defender will need to make to improve his stock at his boyhood club.
Lois Openda – loan to Juventus with €43m obligation to buy (from RB Leipzig)
Juventus thought they had finally found a reliable striker when they secured the signing of Lois Openda from RB Leipzig on an initial loan that would be made permanent for €43m.
But the Belgian’s time in Serie A has been an unmitigated disaster, with nobody anticipating just how poor Openda would be as he finished the season with just one goal in 24 Serie A matches.
Just six of Openda’s appearances were starts and he barely featured in the second half of the season as Juventus completely lost faith in a player whom they knew they’d be forced to sign regardless how he performed.
Juve are now hoping to recoup their losses and immediately move Openda on as soon as his loan becomes permanent, with the 26-year-old’s stock completely crashing after a previously encouraging career.
Christopher Nkunku – €37m to Milan (from Chelsea)
If anything summed up the bizarre chaos at Milan, it was the decision to sign a player who had been out of form and plagued with injuries in a deal that was the most expensive transfer in Italy last summer.
But in came Christopher Nkunku and it has been the least surprising situation to everyone that the 28-year-old has failed to live up to his price tag by continuing exactly as he left off at Chelsea.
Nkunku made 32 Serie A appearances, the majority of which were off the bench, scoring seven times, with Milan eventually finishing fifth and sacking virtually their entire coaching staff and directors after the disappointing season.
Milan are now looking to sell Nkunku and recoup their losses but lightning is unlikely to strike twice by another club signing a flawed player and bailing out the Serie A giants from their poor decisions.
Ardon Jashari – €36m to Milan (from Club Brugge)
Just in case Milan weren’t satisfied with the most expensive signing in Italy backfiring last summer, they also upstaged all their rivals by doing the exact same thing with the second-most expensive signing in Italy last summer.
In fairness, unlike Nkunku, Jashari was a player with promise who has just not worked out, having failed to make the step up to Serie A football after his €36m signing from Club Brugge.
The 23-year-old made just seven starts and 14 league appearances in total, having suffered an injury after his first appearance that kept him out for four months.
But Jashari could benefit from Milan’s disarray, with plenty of teams seeing his talent and believing that a change of environment could unlock his potential, giving the Italian outfit a chance of recouping some of their outlay this summer.
Eliesse Ben Seghir – €32m to Bayer Leverkusen (from Monaco)
Bayer Leverkusen are known for making shrewd transfers for young players so when they replaced the talismanic Florian Wirtz with Eliesse Ben Seghir from Monaco, there were high hopes that the youngster would become the club’s next star playmaker.
However, things have not gone to plan since the 21-year-old’s €32m move from Monaco, with Ben Seghir playing just 247 minutes in the Bundesliga all season and making just four appearances since November.
Although he has had some injuries, Ben Seghir ultimately never seemed ready for the move to Leverkusen and eventually fell down the pecking order to become a forgotten figure, culminating in him missing out on Morocco’s 2026 World Cup squad.
Ben Seghir has been linked with a return to Monaco and it remains to be seen what the future holds for the youngster but Leverkusen may have made a rare mistake with a youngster unless the attacking midfielder can progress rapidly next season.
Lucas Chevalier – €40m to Paris Saint-Germain (from Lille)
Paris Saint-Germain thought they had secured both the long-term goalkeeper for both themselves and France when they made Lucas Chevalier one of the most expensive keepers of all time last summer.
The 24-year-old had impressed during his time at Lille and the €40m deal seemed inevitable, so much so that PSG forced out their star number one Gianluigi Donnarumma to accommodate Chevalier.
But Chevalier managed just 17 appearances in Ligue 1 before being dropped after a string of errors which has put his long-term future into question following the progress of teammate Matvey Safonov.
It is unlikely that PSG will recoup the full amount they paid for Chevalier but they will look to find a solution for the French international this summer, with the decision to part ways with Donnarumma looking even more questionable as time goes on.
Yoan Wissa – €57.7m to Newcastle from Brentford
If this was an assessment of ‘how to panic buy and blow almost all your newly found money on an overpriced asset’, Newcastle would get an A+ with the signing of Yoan Wissa.
The 29-year-old was signed as a proven Premier League goalscorer who could immediately fill the void of Alexander Isak and allow record signing Nick Woltemade time to adapt.
Except Wissa picked up a three-month injury before even kicking a ball for the Magpies, having already been behind on fitness after going on strike while at Brentford in an ironic twist of fate.
Wissa never found fitness and finished the season with one goal in 19 Premier League matches and Newcastle are now ready to part ways with their Isak replacement at a huge loss, except nobody wants to pay the money for an unfit, out-of-form striker on high wages.
A sensationally poor deal that has set Newcastle back immensely and has become the proud winner of the worst transfer of the season award. Congratulations to all involved.
Alexander Isak – €145m to Liverpool (from Newcastle)
Liverpool learned last summer that breaking the British transfer record may not be quite as rewarding as it seems, first with the signing of Florian Wirtz and then the deadline day arrival of Alexander Isak from Newcastle.
What tips the scales against Isak is that Liverpool had quite literally paid €90m for a younger and potentially better version of him just six weeks earlier, making the Swede’s signing a complete luxury.
As Liverpool found out, you can’t get an instant impact from a player who spent the previous two months doing everything except playing football, which led to Isak scoring just three times in his first 16 appearances before suffering a leg break in December.
But to top it all off, it appears as though Arne Slot does not know exactly how to get the best out of his record signing and it would take a return to Isak’s peak fitness for the transfer to be worth anywhere near the outlay spent. Disaster.
Anthony Elanga – €61m to Newcastle (from Nottingham Forest)
Newcastle had, by all accounts, a terrible league campaign and it stemmed from a terrible summer that began with a terrible signing of Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest.
Although not a bad player by any means, Elanga thrived at Forest in a counter-attacking team where he was allowed to use his blistering pace to run past defenders into acres of space and cross the ball to a giant target man in the form of his life.
That was never going to translate well to a Newcastle team who opponents sat deep against, particularly with Elanga having proven his limited ability on the ball while at Manchester United.
Elanga’s season ended with zero goals and one assist in 32 league games. There is not much to add beyond that. No injury issues, plenty of game time, no adaptability issues…just a pure, old-fashioned bad transfer.
Liam Delap – €35m to Chelsea (from Ipswich)
On the surface, a €35m move for a young English striker who netted 12 times for a relegated side could actually be seen as a rare sensible move by Chelsea, so is it fair to label Liam Delap as one of the worst signings of the year?
If you’ve watched him play this season, the answer is a resounding ‘oh god, absolutely’. The 23-year-old finished with more yellow cards than goals (or goal, singular) and could have had more sending offs too had referees done their job properly.
The failure comes from Delap solving no issues for Chelsea and instead leaving them with more problems up front, having spent most his time on the pitch running into defenders with his head, shoulders, knees, toes, elbows and any other limb available.
Chelsea will look to sell the striker this summer, which should at least recover the fee they paid, but of all their poor signings last year (and there were a lot), Delap’s arrival represented the alarming drop in quality that has been all too common under the BlueCo hierarchy.
