Real Madrid’s worst January signings

Even the biggest clubs in the world succumb to desperation when January comes around.

With the arrival of a snappy transfer window comes limited opportunity to find the right players for the job as the season enters its final months. While Real Madrid might do the majority of their business and make their blockbuster signings in the summer, the club has still seen its fair share of laughable January signings.

Below, 90min ranks some of the very worst.

Thomas Gravesen’s winter move to Real Madrid from Everton in 2005 was more bizarre than anything.

A hard-hitting anchoring midfielder, the Dane wasn’t a total disaster in the famously elegant and imperial white of Los Blancos. He scored in one of his very first appearances for the club, although went on to see many more yellow cards than the solitary strike he managed over the course of his 18-month Real career.

He never really got going in the Spanish capital and, at the end of his first full season at the Santiago Bernabeu, the Dane was shipped to Celtic at a loss.

Once an incredibly highly-rated youngster, Lucas Silva arrived in Spain having thoroughly impressed during the infancy of his career in his native Brazil – a transfer fee of around €13m to bring him to Real Madrid in January 2015 would attest to that.

The midfielder, however, failed to find his feet at the Santiago Bernabeu and was sent out on loan at the end of the 2015/16 campaign after managing just 424 minutes of action.

After a less-than-inspiring stint at Marseille, the Brazilian would return on loan to former club Cruzeiro in January 2017 until the conclusion of the 2018/19 season, when Los Blancos would go on to terminate his contract.

You might remember Ze Roberto as a Bundesliga assist merchant but, before that, he was somewhat of a Real Madrid flop.

The club took a €9m punt on the then-Portuguesa youngster in January 1997 but, after a haul of one assist and no goals in 15 La Liga appearances, he lasted just 12 months before being sent out on loan to Flamengo.

After returning from Brazil at the end of the 1997/98 campaign, Roberto was swiftly shipped to Bayer Leverkusen where, you could say, he flourished and earned a move to Bayern Munich.