Harry Maguire, Ousmane Dembele, Paul Pogba & the most expensive transfer flops in football history - ranked

Just like everyone else in the football world, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez fell in love with the fresh-faced, silky-skilled James Rodriguez during Colombia's run to the quarter-finals of the 2014 World Cup. Given the attacking midfielder with a keen eye for spectacular goals had long dreamed of moving to Santiago Bernabeu, a transfer was inevitable, so James became Perez's latest Galactico.

At times during his first season in Spain, he played like one, ending the 2014-15 campaign with 17 goals in all competitions. However, while Zinedine Zidane's appointment as coach in 2016 proved a crucial turning point in Madrid's modern history, it effectively spelt the end of James' Blancos career. He rarely featured under the Frenchman, who at one point claimed that James had asked to be left out of a game against Athletic Club.

In the end, after a couple of years on loan at Bayern Munich, and a dire final season in which he made just eight appearances, the €80m (£68m/$86m) signing left for nothing – the perfect illustration of just how far his stock had fallen since winning the Golden Boot in Brazil.

As Zlatan Ibrahimovic would be the first to tell you, he's an absolute legend of the game. However, his move to Barcelona ranks as one of the most disastrous deals of all time. Remember, the Blaugrana didn't just pay Inter €69.5m (£59m/$75m) for Ibrahimovic, they also handed over 2009 Champions League hero Samuel Eto'o, who then helped the Nerazzurri win the treble, after eliminating Barca in the semis.

By that stage, the Swede's relationship with then Barca boss Pep Guardiola had completely collapsed, with Ibrahimovic having accused the Catalan of having "no balls" and "sh*tting himself" in front of his former boss Jose Mourinho. The striker's agent, the late Mino Raiola, also labelled Guardiola a "coward" and even went for the coach ahead of the 2012 Champions League final.

It's worth remembering that Ibrahimovic scored 21 goals in all competitions, but what we're talking about here is arguably the greatest personality clash in football history.

The most expensive goalkeeper in the world, and yet nowhere near the best. While the £72m signing may have finally reclaimed his starting spot from Edouard Mendy, who has just moved to Saudi Arabia, there is no guarantee that he will hold off competition from new signing Robert Sanchez for the No.1 jersey.

It's also well known that Chelsea would have sold Kepa had a decent offer arrived by now. But there was a distinct lack of interest in his services, which is hardly surprising, of course. Kepa is clearly not a top-level goalkeeper. Indeed, he will probably forever be associated with the Carabao Cup. Firstly, for shamefully refusing to be substituted in the 2019 final, and, secondly, for failing to make a single save and then skying the decisive spot-kick after being brought on solely for the shootout in the 2022 decider against Liverpool.

At times, Neymar has played sensationally well for Paris Saint-Germain, wowing all and sundry with his wonderful array of tricks and flicks. Nonetheless, it would be hard to paint his time at the Parc des Princes as anything other than a failure.

He stepped out of Lionel Messi's shadow to become a superstar in his own right by leading the French club to a first Champions League title. However, the most expensive player of all time was quickly upstaged by Kylian Mbappe and was then joined in Paris by Messi, whose arrival only pushed the Brazilian further down the pecking order at PSG.

The Ligue 1 outfit tried to sell Neymar in 2022 and are once again open to letting him leave. Neymar wants out too, though is reluctant to move to Saudi Arabia just yet. Consequently, PSG are struggling to find a Europe-based buyer for an ill-disciplined and injury-prone attacker now on the wrong side of 30.

The only man to feature on our list twice, Romelu Lukaku first flopped at Manchester United, which was surprising, given he had already proven himself in the Premier League, with both West Brom and Everton.

The Belgian had also hit the ground running at Old Trafford, scoring 10 times in his first nine appearances, breaking a record previously set by the legendary Bobby Charlton. However, Lukaku began to struggle during his second season and, after finally ending a 12-game drought under Jose Mourinho, he saw less and less game time under the Portuguese's successor, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Lukaku feels he was poorly treated by the Norwegian, while many United fans, including Gary Neville, believe he was neither fit nor talented enough to lead the Red Devils attack. The one thing we can all agree on is that the £75m ($94m) fee turned out to be a dreadful bit of business.

Plenty of pundits consider Alvaro Morata's agent the best in the business. How else to explain how a striker who has consistently struggled to score goals continues earning moves to Europe's elite clubs for significant sums of money?

Morata did manage 15 Primera Division goals in 2016-17, which convinced Chelsea to sign him from Real Madrid for £60m ($75m), but it remains his best-ever top-flight haul. Indeed, the Spain international managed just 16 Premier League goals during a miserable 18-month stay at Stamford Bridge, which was cut short in January 2019, when he was allowed to join Atletico Madrid on loan with a view to a permanent transfer.

Morata felt the press were to quick to criticise him during his time in England, but it's impossible to look at his goal return as anything but a disappointment given the size of the outlay.

Antoine Griezmann humiliated Barcelona in 2018 by openly flirting with a €100m (£86m/$107m) transfer to Camp Nou before publicly rejecting them at the end of a video documentary produced by Blaugrana defender Gerard Pique. The fans were furious. They wanted nothing more to do with the Atletico Madrid ace.

Josep Maria Bartomeu, though, inexplicably went back in for Griezmann the following year, agreeing to pay the €120m (£100m/$130m) buy-out clause in the Frenchman's contract, as if determined to prove a point.

The versatile attacker had his moments at Barca, but they were few and far between and he went crawling back to Madrid in 2021, re-joining Atletico on loan before completing a permanent move back to the capital, where he re-established himself as a world-class player, suggesting his struggles at Camp Nou had more to do with Bartomeu's shambolic Barca than any lack of quality or effort on Griezmann's part.

There was a time when it looked like Nicolas Pepe was coming good for Arsenal; a purple patch at the end of the 2020-21 campaign when he looked like the player that had torn it up in Ligue 1 with Lille. However, the Ivorian scored one Premier League goal in his final season at the Emirates, his place in the starting line up having long since been taken by younger, better players, making his departure in the summer of 2022 inevitable.

Arsenal allowed Pepe to join Nice on loan and there now appears no chance of the Gunners recouping the whopping £79m they paid for his services in 2019, with the winger's contract set to expire in 2024.

Joao Felix believed had plenty of offers during the summer of 2019 but he felt that his career would be best served by a move to Atletico Madrid. He could not have been more wrong, with the forward failing dismally to justify his €126m (£113m/$135m) transfer fee.

Felix said at the time that he just wanted to "enjoy" his football, so it remains hard to work out why he elected to play under Diego Simeone, who demands that his attackers work as hard as his midfielders and defenders. Right from the start, this deal just didn't look like a good fit, and so it proved, with Atletico agreeing to let Felix join Chelsea on loan for the remainder of the 2022-23 season, after just 25 goals in 96 Liga appearances.

He did, in the process, extend his contract with the Rojiblancos, but that was only done to try recoup some some money on their record signing at the end of what they hoped would be a successful stint at Stamford Bridge. Felix lacked consistency in England, though, and is now desperately trying to find himself a new club, even recently going public with his dream of playing for Barcelona. However, it now feels far more likely that he'll end up in the Saudi Pro League - which would represent quite the fall from grace.

Harry Maguire can be a good Premier League defender. He proved that at Leicester. Remember, even Pep Guardiola wanted to sign him in 2019. Maguire claims that he chose United instead, but the truth is that Manchester City baulked at the price. They simply didn't feel Maguire was worth a world-record fee for a defender, and they were proven correct.

Some of the abuse Maguire received from Manchester United fans during his four years at the club has gone way over "the line", as the centre-back put it himself. But there's no denying that his spell at Old Trafford has been a dreadful disappointment, and the decision to make him club captain was made to look completely ridiculous by a succession of shocking displays and meme-worthy mistakes.

As if you need reminding, United paid £80m ($100m) for Maguire; they're not going to get even half that fee if they can convince him to leave before the close of the transfer window. Maguire may not be "sh*t", as Rafael van der Vaart infamously stated, but the England international certainly ranks as a colossal waste of money.

Lukaku said his return to Chelsea was about "unfinished business", given he had failed to score once during his previous stint at Stamford Bridge. However, while he finished the 2021-22 season as the club's top scorer, the striker's second spell proved far worse than his first. Indeed, 15 goals from 44 appearances was a dismal return given the club-record investment of £97.5m ($119m) in his services.

Lukaku only had himself to blame too, for conducting an unsanctioned interview with Sky Sport Italia midway through the season, in which he professed his undying love for former club Inter and, even more incredibly, criticised Thomas Tuchel's tactics. He never really recovered from losing the trust of his coach and the club's supporters, making his loan return to San Siro an inevitability.

However, after once again upsetting Inter fans by conducting secret talks with Juventus over a move to Turin, it seems that nobody wants Lukaku anymore, given Bianconeri supporters are also dead against his arrival. Lukaku has already rejected offers from Saudi Pro League clubs, but he might be left with no choice but to move to the Middle East.

Manchester United lost Paul Pogba for nothing in 2012. Ten years later, it happened again. Make no mistake about it, most fans were delighted to get rid of a player that they'd long since given up on producing his undoubted world-class quality on a consistent basis. Indeed, some irate supporters on the Stretford End not only booed the France midfielder during the Premier League clash with Norwich in April 2022, they also shouted 'F*ck off, Pogba!'

Losing such a valuable asset for nothing still stung, though. United, after all, paid a world-record £89.5m to re-sign Pogba from Juventus in 2016. However, after six seasons, one Europa League, one Carabao Cup and a string of pitiful performances and shameful come-and-get-me pleas to rival clubs, Pogba returned from whence he game.

Again, much to most fans' relief.

One of the most important transfers in Liverpool's history but oneofthe worst in Barcelona's. The Blaugrana agreed to pay €120m (£100m/$130m) – plus €40m (£34m/$43m) in potential bonuses – for a player that they simply didn't need.

Was he an attacker, a midfielder or something in between? Bartomeu certainly had no idea but he went out of his way to sign the Brazilian regardless. His most significant contribution during his four years on Barca's books was scoring two goals against the Catalans while on loan to Bayern Munich in 2020.

After spending years trying to offload Coutinho, they let him join Aston Villa for just €20m (£17m/$21.5m) in 2022 as they desperately tried to restore some financial order at Camp Nou after very nearly going bankrupt under Bartomeu.

A transfer 10 years in the making, Eden Hazard's move to Real Madrid appeared doomed from the moment the winger turned up overweight for pre-season training. In fairness to the Belgian, he was also desperately unfortunate with injuries, having had an almost clean bill of health for the duration of his time at Chelsea. However, even when he managed to get a run of games together in Spain, he looked a very cheap imitation of the player who had illuminated the Premier League for seven years.

Hazard has got his hands on some important trophies, including the Champions League, but he played about as much part in Madrid's 2021-22 triumph as Gareth Bale. He left Santiago Bernabeu having never played a single minute of a Clasico, which tells you everything you need to know about the worst signing in Real's history.

The shock loss of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017 left Barcelona in a tight spot. Yes, they had received a world-record fee for the Brazilian, but every club in the world knew they had money to burn and were desperate for a replacement. Indeed, Dortmund saw Barca coming a mile off, playing hard ball on Ousmane Dembele until the Catalans cracked, making the ultimate panic-buy by handing over an initial €105m (£90m/$112m) for a player with just one good Bundesliga season under his belt.

Dembele didn't just fail dismally to justify his price tag. He repeatedly let the club - and himself - down, right up until the moment he left for PSG just a year after extending his contract. There were constant reports that Dembele's diet was disastrous and that he was playing video games until the early hours of the morning, which led to him arriving late for one team meeting after another. As he admitted himself, he "lost five years" of his life because of his unprofessional lifestyle, which contributed to the umpteen injuries he suffered during his time at Camp Nou.

Barca went out of their way to accommodate Dembele, with club president Joan Laporta arguing that this "genius" of a player deserved "special treatment", resulting in Dembele being given countless chances to prove himself. He never did, though, and infuriated his employers, his coach and the club's supporters by absconding to Paris having never once managed to hit double figures in a single Liga season.