Silly, isn’t it, to rush to judgement on transfers? We all know it can take even the very best players time to adjust to a new league or even just a new club and a new approach under a new manager with new team-mates.
Ridiculously daft to just be declaring any obviously top-quality professional footballer a bit sh*t a few months into a big next step in their career.
Here, then, are five Premier League summer signings that we think might be a bit sh*t, only one of which has subsequently played really well in a Champions League game since time of writing.
Did we learn anything from that? In the immortal words of the great folk-philosopher Homer Simpson: ‘Marge, my friend, I haven’t learned a thing.’
Xavi Simons (Tottenham)
Turned in a hugely encouraging man-of-the-match performance in a very weird 4-0 Champions League win over Copenhagen that still prompted more questions than answers.
While we finally saw real evidence of the impish, creative spark Spurs desperately need from Xavi in the continued absences of Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison, the nagging doubts remain: was this game against such limited opposition a sign of Xavi finding his feet or finding his level?
The fact Wilson Odobert and Randal Kolo Muani also had their best games for Spurs suggests there’s a strong chance it might just have been quite easy.
Even Thomas Frank’s harshest critics will have accepted that withdrawing Xavi at 2-0 after Brennan Johnson’s red card just before the hour mark was an unfortunate but necessary step with a lead to protect. The fact that lock-the-game-down change precipitated the most astonishing five minutes of attacking football yet seen from Spurs in this deeply weird season again leaves us pondering just where Xavi stands in it all.
The talent is there, and he will clearly be given time and perhaps a fine game even against a team as poor as Copenhagen is all he needs to get the confidence going again. But unless and until there’s some halfway compelling evidence of it against proper teams, he is going to face inevitable questions about the Bundesliga Tax and whether he’s quite cut out for Our League, and some of those questions will be reasonable and not just ones in ridiculous terms from ridiculous gobsh*tes like Jamie O’Hara.
READ: Sorry Carragher but Joao Palhinha is the wrong Spurs player to criticise
Milos Kerkez (Liverpool)
There are more conspicuous strugglers at Liverpool, sure, but greater mitigation. Florian Wirtz has the ‘adapting to a new league and coping with insane price tag’ mitigation. Alexander Isak has the ‘messy summer with late resolution ruining pre-season’ mitigation, albeit that’s slightly more of a self-inflicted problem.
Milos Kerkez has been the real oddity among the potential flops from Liverpool’s summer business specifically because he looked the safest bet of the lot. He was the best left-back in the Premier League last season and there didn’t seem to be anything about either the defensive or attacking side of his game that indicated he was in any way unready or incapable of making the step up to an elite club.
But he’s been real, hard sh*t. Again and again. Sat out the best night of the season against Real Madrid altogether, and we’ve grown increasingly obsessed by the way Virgil van Dijk looks at him with something approaching shit-on-his-shoe disgust after every single defensive travesty that has befallen Liverpool this season. Even when it’s not actually Kerkez’s fault. Especially when it’s not actually Kerkez’s fault.
Benjamin Sesko (Manchester United)
The most predictable thing ever, wasn’t it? It’s not even about Sesko himself, really, but about whether any striker can come into the ridiculous world of Manchester United and instantly shine.
He’s got a couple of goals, but the fact even that is being treated like a pleasant surprise 10 games into the season tells you how this isn’t just shaping up as another flop for United but one that absolutely everyone saw coming.
And that includes United themselves, who now appear to be out there briefing that ‘Actually, guys, we knew this guy was going to struggle’ as if this is some kind of flex.
Sure, it’s perfectly reasonable to plan for Sesko not being able to settle in as quickly or easily as the Premier League-hardened Matheus Cunha or Bryan Mbeumo, but when you’re dropping over £70m on a player you know you really do need to become an instant first-choice pick, it’s not really much of a defence to announce that you didn’t really think it would work out that way all along.
James Trafford (Manchester City)
Some sympathy for a player who signs with a club of Man City’s size to be their first-choice keeper and then a few games in sees a genuine contender for the title of world’s best goalkeeper come through the doors.
Trafford, having played in each of City’s three opening games of the Premier League season, has been restricted to just a couple of Carabao run-outs in the two months since Gianluigi Donnarumma’s arrival at the Etihad.
But let’s not also pretend Trafford is an innocent victim. He was quite cack in those early games, and the numbers are stark. City lost two of the three games Trafford played, conceding four goals, at least one of which was directly his fault.
Donnarumma hasn’t been flawless by any stretch, but in the seven subsequent games City have won five and lost only once while only conceding a further four goals.
Trafford’s uncertainty and inability to inspire the necessary confidence in a title-chasing defence didn’t help his cause, however unlucky he might be given the unexpected nature of Donnarumma’s sudden availability on the market.
Jamie Gittens (Chelsea)
Already the fear is there that this is another exciting young footballer turned grist for the Chelsea mill, another talent lost in the churn of the Clearlake approach to player trading.
He’s had plenty of minutes across Chelsea’s season, which is already a confusing one in its own right, but his only goal involvements so far have come in the Carabao and a thumping win over Ajax in the Champions League.
His cameo contributions in the Premier League, where not one of his eight appearances have lasted longer than an hour, have been distinctly underwhelming.
To be fair, he will probably survive the Stamford Bridge experience. He will probably still have a perfectly decent career, but it probably won’t be at Chelsea, who also won’t care at all as they inexplicably turn a £15m profit when selling him to some Bundesliga club or other in January 2027.