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A player's market value is influenced by a variety of factors like age, ability and most importantly form. And some of these players have looked like a shadow of their former selves this season.
Just a couple of years ago, footballers were getting transferred from one club to another for astronomical amounts. A raft of players were being valued at around €100 million. The pandemic has had a say on that in recent times.
Regardless, when one is playing for the biggest clubs in Europe, they will usually have a high market value. But they will need to back it up with performances to match. We have seen many big-money transfers happen over the past few years and unfortunately, many of them have proved to be failures.
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What happens with flop transfers is that the buying club will incur losses if they subsequently sell the player they've bought because his transfer market value would have dipped. Without further ado, let's take a look at five stars whose market value has dipped the most in 2021.
#5 Antoine Griezmann (Barcelona) - €60 million (€20 million dip)
One touted as a direct rival to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi during his heyday at Atletico Madrid, Antoine Griezmann has failed to kick on in the same vein. He is, by no means, a bad player. But he is just not the player Barcelona thought they were getting when they paid €120 million to sign him from the Rojiblancos.
Griezmann's transfer market value has gone down from €80 million to €60 million. After having an underwhelming debut season at Barcelona, the Frenchman has improved. He has scored 16 goals this term across all competitions and has provided six assists as well.
It's hard to fault Barcelona for thinking he'd produce numbers better than that. He has also turned thirty and his current market value is exactly half of what Barcelona paid to secure his services.
#4 Philippe Coutinho (Barcelona) - €40 million (€20 million dip)
Philippe Coutinho will go down in history as one of the biggest transfer flops of all time. Barcelona paid close to €150 million to sign him from Liverpool. After impressing in his first half-season, Coutinho struggled to fit in at Barcelona and was shipped out to Bayern Munich.
He enjoyed a great outing in the Bundesliga where he won the continental treble with the Bavarians. He started playing decently upon his return to the Camp Nou but has now been sidelined with an injury and it doesn't look like he will feature again this season.
Coutinho's transfer market value has dipped from €60 million to €40 million this year and Barcelona might try to cut their losses and cash in on him this summer.
#3 Eden Hazard (Real Madrid) - €40 million (€20 million dip)
It's hard to imagine Eden Hazard's dream move to Real Madrid taking a worse trajectory than this. Hazard was absolutely tearing it up for Chelsea in the Premier League but his form at Real Madrid has been absolutely abysmal.
His stint in the Spanish capital has been riddled with injuries and the Belgian international has come nowhere near his best for Zinedine Zidane's men. He has played just 25 games for Los Blancos in La Liga over two seasons and has scored three goals and provided just four assists.
Hazard was widely viewed as the successor to Cristiano Ronaldo. That reflected in the kind of money that Real Madrid were willing to shell out to secure his signing. However, things have not worked out for both parties and Hazard is currently valued at a paltry €40 million.
#2 Miralem Pjanic (Barcelona) - €28 million (€20 million dip)
In what is a swap deal that still doesn't make much sense for Barcelona, they exchanged a young and exciting Arthur Melo for an ageing Miralem Pjanic from Juventus. Pjanic is a great midfielder and one of the best deep-lying playmakers of his generation.
However, Barcelona were supposed to revitalize their midfield and not compound their issues. Pjanic is rarely used by Ronald Koeman and the 31-year-old has already voiced his discontent at the manager.
Pjanic has started just six games in the La Liga this season, producing nothing of note. It is no surprise, then, that his value has dipped from €48 million to €28 million this year.
#1 Clement Lenglet (Barcelona) - €25 million (€25 million dip)
Clement Lenglet has had the chance to really stamp his authority over the Barcelona backline but he has not exactly covered himself in glory. He has committed far too many mistakes this season and was the main culprit behind Barcelona's defensive capitulation in the earlier parts of the campaign.
Naturally, Lenglet's stocks have taken a massive hit. In fact, his value has halved over the course of the year. The Frenchman, who used to be valued at €50 million, is now valued at €25 million.
Youngsters Oscar Mingueza and Ronald Araujo have done better at centre-back than Lenglet this season. But to be fair to Lenglet, he has shown a fair bit of improvement over the past two months and hopefully he can bring his value back up.
