A ranking of the 10 worst summer signings of the Premier League season so far - with Liverpool, Spurs & Aston Villa player off to poor starts.
With only five games’ worth of Premier League football in the books so far, it’s really too early to render any kind of judgement on how good the many new summer signings are going to be. But we’ve got three long weeks of international football to wade through, so it feels like a good time to check in on how the new faces are getting along anyway – good and bad.
We’ve already ranked our 10 favourite new faces of the 2026/27 season based on their early form, so now it’s time to cast a sceptical eye over the players who have struggled to settle in.
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Plenty of these players are talented enough to come good, and we have little doubt that several of them will look like much better buys by the time the campaign comes to a close – but for now, here are the 10 new signings who have found life in the Premier League the most difficult so far.
The Brazilian midfielder is a proven commodity who will almost certainly go down as a decent buy in the long run, but he endured the worst debut of any new signing this season. Gomes was sent off with just 40 minutes on the clock against Brighton, having already contributed to one of the Seagulls’ goals in a chastening 4-0 defeat. He did at least play well against Club Brugge in the Champions League, and probably won’t be as bad again as he was down on the Sussex coast.
The Canada international boasted a pretty impressive scoring record in Belgium and Brighton were desperate for a striker in the wake of Danny Welbeck’s departure, so it looked as though David had a great chance of making a good early impression at the Amex Stadium.
Instead, he’s played just 23 minutes of football and missed a golden opportunity for close range against Leeds United, his only shot on goal so far. David has spent the first part of the season rooted to the bench while Charalampos Kostoulas outshines him up front.
We’d probably feel a little better about the Brazilian winger if he hadn’t cost £70m despite the fact that he was coming off the back of a frankly dreadful season for Manchester City. As it is, his return of zero goals and zero assists from three Premier League games only deepens the concern about the value of the deal, although he did score one and create another from the bench against Charlton Athletic in the EFL Cup.
The versatile Ghanaian youngster, who can operate as either a midfielder or a right-back, has been pegged one of Africa’s brightest prospects for the past couple of years and Coventry seemed to have engineered something of a coup when they signed him.
He has struggled to settle in, however, and has been particularly disappointing off the ball, winning just 29% of his one-on-one ground duels, an awful number for a defensively-minded player. He’s only 20 years old and has plenty of talent, so we’re sure there’s more to come.
Given how important new signings are to newly-promoted sides, Coventry won’t be too thrilled to have multiple early-season flops on the books. Awoniyi was meant to offer a veteran presence up front and some sorely-needed goal threat, but has more red cards than goals in the Premier League so far despite getting 1.30xG’s worth of chances. The 29-year-old did, at least, bag one against Plymouth Argyle in the EFL Cup to get off the mark.
In many respects, Marmoush has played quite well since signing from Manchester City. His three successful dribbles at a 71% success rate makes him one of the best ball carriers in the league so far. His passing has been accurate. He’s working hard off the ball. He just isn’t scoring any goals, and that’s a pretty big problem. In the Egyptian’s defence, the service he’s received has been abysmal – he has just 0.38xG from four starts for Spurs. His slow start may not be his fault.
You expect an awful lot for £123m. As yet, Barcola hasn’t delivered any of it. The Frenchman has been a subdued presence so far, has offered virtually no goal threat and hasn’t been creating chances. Given his usual dynamism off the ball, the fact that he’s only beaten a defender 14% of the time with his dribbles is downright worrying. Barcola has been good enough in the past that one would imagine that his form will improve – but we thought the same of Florian Wirtz, too.
Maeda was consistently excellent for Celtic during his long spell in Scotland and Ipswich fans had every reason to be excited by the Japanese international’s arrival, but he’s failed to find any form at Portman Road thus far and has been justly dropped to the bench for the last couple of games. After missing a sitter against Sunderland on debut, Maeda has been poor on and off the ball and is still yet to create a single shooting opportunity despite being a prolific playmaker at his former club. A turgid start for a talented player.
To be perfectly honest, we’re not entirely sure why Palace decided to re-sign Guessand from Aston Villa after a shrug of a loan spell last season. The Ivorian forward only managed one goal in the Premier League last year and hasn’t looked remotely likely to add to that tally since moving back to Selhurst Park. After coming off the bench twice to minimal effect, we’re no closer to figuring out what prompted the decision to sign him a second time.
Apparently, it’s now a rule that Aston Villa have to make one bafflingly pointless loan signing per season – and Garnacho has stepped into Harvey Elliott’s boots in admirable fashion. After just 36 supine minutes of football in a claret and blue shirt, the Argentine has been relegated to a bench-riding role and there is already speculation that his career at Villa Park has hit a dead end.
His failure was somewhat foreseeable given his struggles over the last two years, but it’s hard to pick out a worse signing from the many made over the summer. Perhaps he’ll finally live up to his potential at some stage, but nothing we’ve seen over the past month or so has persuaded us that it will happen at Villa Park.