Man Utd are desperate to sign Frenkie de Jong but this ranking of the 31 permanent Premier League purchases from Barcelona could scare them.
The Red Devils should probably check this out before making their ‘final bid’.
31) Winston Bogarde (Chelsea, 2000, free)
That ‘free’ should be in quote marks, really. As has been written elsewhere: ‘”I may be one of the worst buys in the history of the Premiership but I don’t care,” Bogarde said even before retirement, pre-empting his immortality in evergreen lists and features. He did not feature much for Chelsea, but he damn well played the game.’
30) Claudio Bravo (Manchester City, 2016, £15.4m)
New Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola staked his reputation on Claudio Bravo after the rather public deposing of Joe Hart. The Chilean repaid such unshakeable faith by getting sent off for handball in a 4-0 hammering at the hands of Barcelona, before losing his place to Willy Caballero by February. Ederson was soon in to sort the goalkeeping mess out and Bravo’s final three years were spent largely mulling about on the bench, save for a handful of cameo appearances to win the League Cup and such.
29) Adama Traore (Aston Villa, 2015, £7m)
Tim Sherwood described Adama Traore as “a bit of Messi and Ronaldo” – and then stated “I don’t want to compare him with another player” – but the winger barely played before the manager’s 2015 sacking and Remi Garde didn’t seem to fancy him much either. Traore was then immediately sold to Middlesbrough upon relegation.
28) Giovani dos Santos (Tottenham, 2008, £8.6m)
Despite interest from Chelsea and Manchester City, it was Tottenham who secured the signature of highly rated Barcelona teenager Giovani dos Santos in 2008. John Bostock, Heurelho Gomes, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Vedran Corluka, David Bentley and Luka Modric also moved to north London that summer in what can only generously be described as a mixed transfer window. Dos Santos scored as many goals as he had loan spells, with none of those strikes coming in his 17 Premier League appearances.
27) Sylvinho (Manchester City, 2009, free)
Considering Sylvinho played the entire 2009 Champions League final victory for Barcelona over Manchester United 89 days before joining Manchester City on a free, more might have been expected of the former Arsenal left-back. But at 35 and signed as back-up to Wayne Bridge on a 12-month contract, the Brazilian fulfilled his role across 15…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Football365…