Premier League signings: The XI we fear will flop this season

Premier League signings don’t always work out. Just ask Andriy Shevchenko, Radamel Falcao, Angel Di Maria and Jerome Boateng.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a world-class player such as the examples we’ve listed there or a fledging starlet looking to make their name in England, the simple fact of the matter is that our nation’s beloved competition can be a cruel mistress.

Like it or not, the sad reality is that a good proportion of signings each summer do indeed go on to flop and predicting who they’ll be can often prove to be an impossible task.

Besides, lest we forget that you would have been laughed out of the room for suggesting this time last year that Romelu Lukaku will flop at Chelsea on the back of a 30-goal season with Inter Milan.

But alas, that’s exactly what happened.

So, here at GIVEMESPORT, we’ve acutely aware that the latest instalment of our 2022/23 Premier League predictions might rustle a few feathers because we’re trying our hand at naming the summer signings that, well, won’t come good.

Having already named an XI of buys that we think will tear it up this season, we’ve built a line-up of purchases that – for reasons we’ll go on to unpack – we fear have a difficult nine months ahead.

First, though, there are some caveats to work through because the players in our XI will fall into one of two categories which can be quantified as deserving of that notorious ‘flop’ label.

Funnily enough, the main type is the player simply having a poor campaign, but the second is a little more nuanced: things simply not working out at the club even if it isn’t actually their fault.

Take, for example, the fact that you’d probably class Donny van de Beek as a United flop hitherto, but not necessarily because of his own