Darren Bent: Five more expensive flops
Darren Bent might have scored the goals to keep Aston Villa in the Premier League back in 2011, but his four-and-a-half years in the West Midlands was wasted.
It's estimated the £24million striker cost Villa more than £27,000 per touch in his 72 appearances for the claret and blues.
looks at five other flops.
1 Fernando Torres
It is easy now to forget just what a revelation the Spaniard was when he first joined Liverpool in 2007.
The Spaniard plundered 65 goals in 102 games during three-and-a-half years on Merseyside and was snapped up by Chelsea for £50million in January 2011, then a British transfer record.
But Torres' first game, a 1-0 defeat to his former club, set the tone for things to come as he failed to deliver on the hype, netting just 20 Premier League goals during his time at Stamford Bridge.
2 Andy Carroll
Having seen their coffers boosted considerably by the sale of Torres, Liverpool spent a far chunk of the cash on prising Carroll from Newcastle for a whopping £35million.
It would prove a disastrous investment as the injury-blighted striker scored just 11 goals in 18 months before being offloaded to West Ham, initially on loan.
He would eventually be sold to the Hammers for £15million, a loss of £20million for the Reds.
3 Tomasz Frankowski
The Polish international was dubbed the 'missing piece of the jigsaw' by boss Glenn Hoddle when he joined Wolves for £1.4million from Elche in January 2006, but all he did was fall apart in the box.
Frankowksi failed to find the net during a year-and-a-half at Molineux, lost his place in the national squad and was dubbed the 'Pole without a goal' by the fans.
4 Borja Valero
The midfielder was a record signing for Albion when he joined from Real Mallorca for £4.7million in 2008.
But the Spaniard never came close to flourishing at the Hawthorns and he was loaned back to Mallorca 12 months later, after the Baggies had been relegated from the Premier League under Tony Mowbray.
Another season out on loan followed, this time with Villarreal, before his time with Albion finally came to an end in 2011 with a permanent move back to Spain, for an undisclosed fee. He is now with Fiorentina.
5 Bosko Balaban
The Croatian's fee might be nowhere near the figure Villa paid for Bent a decade later but his 2001 £5.8million transfer from Dinamo Zagreb was big money at the time.
Balaban will go down as one of Villa's worst-ever signings after failing to start a Premier League game in two-and-a-half years at the club.
In total, he made just nine appearances, seven as a substitute, before being offloaded to Club Brugge on a free transfer in December 2003.
