Premier League Transfers: 15 Talented Imports Who Completely Flopped

2. Albert Luque

Thanks to his time at Mallorca and especially Deportivo, Albert Luque established himself as one of the best Spanish players outside of the big two of Barcelona and Real Madrid, and his form in La Liga had led to a call up to the Spanish national team and it seemed likely that it would bring the attention of Europe€™s big hitters. This is why it seemed such an impressive move by Newcastle when they appeared to steal a march on the rest and snag his signature. Perhaps the rest of Europe knew something that the Toon didn€™t, because this is a move that they would certainly regret. Albert Luque spent more time on the injury list than he did on the pitch at Newcastle. Between his various stints on the physio€™s table he did little to remind the fans of the player he once was, aside from scoring in a memorable victory at Sunderland, but even then his goal prompted the caveat laden "and even Luque scored." Instead of being the effective winger that Newcastle wanted, Luque was instead a very costly passenger that Newcastle struggled to shake off, and there's a good chance that the vastly inflated price that brought him to England was one of the reasons the club is now stoically dedicated to not paying over the odds for players who are on the downturn. His fall from grace got to such a drastic extent that he was considered a reserve before his departure for Ajax.