The 5 costliest flops in world football

Modified May 28, 2019 13:43 GMT

Chelsea v Club Atletico de Madrid - UEFA Champions League Semi Final — During his time, Fernando Torres strengthened the strange case of the Chelsea No. 9

#3 Andy Carroll (£35m) - Newcastle to Liverpool

Liverpool v Bayer Leverkusen - Pre Season Friendly — Carroll could not fulfill his potential at Liverpool

Andy Carroll started his senior football career at the Magpies and was pretty decent in the five seasons he played since coming up from their youth ranks. He featured in 91 games in total, scoring 33 goals. In the summer of 2010, Carroll joined Liverpool from Newcastle United for £35m. He spent two seasons at Anfield, playing 58 games and scoring just 11 goals, a meagre return for his huge transfer cost.

He was sent out on loan to West Ham in the 2012/13 season and West Ham decided to make his loan move permanent ahead of the 2013/14 season. Carroll still plays for the Hammers, featuring in 128 games so far, scoring 33 goals, but he never fulfilled his potential or lived up to the expectations that his huge transfer fee had generated.

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Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written over 8500 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

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Edited by Ben Winfield