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Everyone gets excited when their club splashes out on a big transfer, but not every big deal goes to plan.
Sometimes a player will come in and transform things, but all too often they fail to live up to expectations.
With club record transfers now more common than ever - 13 Premier League teams smashed their record in 2016 alone, with two more this January - splashing the cash doesn’t always return results.
Sportsmail has taken a look at every Premier League team’s record purchase, and ranked them…
The epitome of a bad transfer. Legendary in its awfulness. Still the high-watermark for inept transfer policy. Andy Carroll’s move to Liverpool was a perfect storm of getting things wrong.
Having scored 31 goals in 80 league games for Newcastle, Carroll was seen as a long-term England striker by Liverpool, but he managed just six Premier League goals in his two and a half years at the club, before being sold at a £20m loss, with injuries and poor form having destroyed his reputation.
The other part of the same deal that took Carroll to Liverpool, Torres is above the Englishman for two reasons; he had a proven record before the deal and he did, at least, score a crucial Champions League goal to redeem some of his reputation.
But for the most part he was an expensive flop, failing to score in his first 13 games, and eventually allowed to leave on a free after four unhappy years.
The first of the new crop to feature on this list, it may be harsh to judge Success on the back of just a few months in the English game. But when you break your transfer record for a player, you have to expect some return.
The Nigerian forward has started just once in the Premier League since signing, contributed only one goal and one assist, and though injuries have played their part, when he has been on the pitch he hasn’t looked a multi-million pound forward.
The oldest club record still standing in the Premier League, Afonso Alves was meant to come in and fire Middlesbrough to a new level, having banged in the goals in the Dutch League. But the Brazilian never made it work on Teesside.
His first goals came in a 2-2 draw against Manchester United, but it was all downhill from there, and both he and Boro were out of the Premier League 18 months later. His actual record - 10 goals in 42 games - is not as dreadful as some remember, but he was a huge disappointment.
When it comes to signing forwards, you expect a lot from a club that unearthed Michu for just £2m, and picked up Andre Ayew on a free transfer. So Borja Baston’s arrival at Swansea was cause for excitement - he scored 18 La Liga goals last season, and 23 the year before.
But it’s all gone wrong in the Premier League, with his only goal for Swansea so far coming in a 3-2 defeat at Arsenal. The fact that he can’t get in the team for a club battling relegation suggests this was not money well spent.
Leicester were always going to have a fight on their hands to even come close to replicating last year’s remarkable season, but signings like Islam Slimani and Ahmed Musa were supposed to bring them more firepower.
Instead, they are battling relegation, and despite two goals on his debut, Slimani has contributed far too little. Indeed, he hasn’t scored since December, and five Premier League goals is a poor return for £30m.
When Ibe signed for Bournemouth last summer, it was his chance to prove he was ready for first-team football in the Premier League - not just potential, but the real deal at the highest level.
With no goals, no assists, and barely any impact, the former Liverpool youngster has failed spectacularly to prove that. However, he is only 21, and there is still time for him, and Bournemouth, to show that this isn’t a bad deal.
It’s harsh to consider Bolasie a ‘bad’ signing, because in his first months at Everton he looked impressive, linking up well with Romelu Lukaku and, if not always producing end product, suggesting that he could get to another level.
But then injury struck, with cartilage damage and a ruptured ACL, the kind of issues some players never recover from. The upshot is that come the start of next season, Everton will have a 28-year-old winger, fighting for fitness, who has only scored one goal since signing for £30m. It’s hard to justify that as value for money.
The £14m Sunderland spent on Ndong was a lot for a 22-year-old who had played fewer than 50 league games in France, but the Gabonese midfielder has adapted to life in the Premier League reasonably quickly.
There has been some inconsistency, and he was recently dropped for not being ‘British’ enough, but given Sunderland’s shocking season so far, and perennial struggles, it was perhaps unrealistic to expect Ndong to transform them completely.
Imbula doesn’t just hold one transfer record - he was also Porto’s record signing back in 2015, but lasted just seven months at the Portuguese club before moving to Stoke.
But after a really good start, his progress has stalled, and the French midfielder has played just six minutes of Premier League football in 2017. Linked with a move back to his home country, Stoke would probably get back a large part of their outlay if he left, but you can’t help but feel he could still improve their team if given a chance.
A fringe player at Tottenham, but an England international, Mason looked a good signing when he joined Hull last summer - particularly given how depleted their squad was when he signed.
His form, like Hull’s, has been up and down, but he had been an important player until the sickening head injury he suffered against Chelsea, and is unlikely to play again this season. If Hull remain in the top flight, he will still be a crucial part of their squad next year.
Brilliant at Aston Villa, but misfit at Liverpool, Benteke ought to have been perfect for Crystal Palace, and they paid a huge transfer fee for him - more than twice their previous record outlay.
It’s not all been plain sailing, and only one league goal in 2017 is a worrying drop off, but Benteke is on course to become the club’s top Premier League scorer in a season since Andy Johnson in 2005. He was signed to bring goals, and he is, more or less, delivering on that count.
Robbie Brady may not be the best player to sign if you’re in a relegation battle - he has seen his club fall from Premier League to Championship in both of the last two seasons, first with Hull and then Norwich.
But Burnley, in 10th, were practically safe when he signed. They are now 13th, with four points from six games since Brady joined. He scored a stunning free kick to earn one of those points against Chelsea, but has not yet reached the heights of performance he was putting in for Norwich.
Right, bear with me. I know he’s not been brilliant, or at least, not as brilliant as you might hope given the exorbitant transfer fee, but that doesn’t mean he’s been bad. Pogba is not yet proving value for money, but he is contributing on the pitch, and, given his age, will only get better.
Four goals and three assists from midfield is a decent tally in a wholly dysfunctional Manchester United side, his relationship with Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been impressive, and if United were to sell him today, they’d probably get back the whole of their outlay.
A strange one this. Terrible in his first season, when he looked like a complete flop. Then the Argentine improved drastically, to the extent that last season he was one of Spurs’ leading players as they fought for the title.
Now, though, he’s almost entirely disappeared, what was thought to be a minor hip problem ruling him out since October. If he gets back on the pitch, he will once again be a key player. If not, Spurs can still enjoy the two good seasons he did have.
Given he was free to Swansea in 2015, £21m seems like crazy money to spend on the same player just a year later. But Ayew is a classy forward, and had proven his quality in the Premier League, so while the deal was not quite risk-free, it made sense.
And while the Ghanaian didn’t have a great first six months - hampered by injury and then absence - his three goals in four games since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations prove that he can, and will, be a very astute signing.
When Ozil signed for Arsenal they hadn’t won a major trophy in eight seasons. In his first two seasons, they had won two. Ozil lifted the Gunners to a different level, dictating their attacking play and becoming an assist machine.
There are lots of criticisms to be made of the German, many of them fair. But Arsenal are a shadow of themselves without him, and when he plays well, they play well. If he leaves this summer, after four years, those four seasons will represent excellent value for money.
I know, I know, it’s very early days, but Gabbiadini looks the real deal. The Italian striker has six goals in his first five Saints games, and could have had another one were it not for a linesman’s errant flag in the League Cup final.
It is a mark of how quickly he has settled that his recent injury caused real worry for Southampton, and if he keeps up the same form on his return he will quickly become a highly-coveted striker around the league.
West Brom have been the understated heroes of this Premier League season, quietly cruising towards a top-half finish and producing some superb performances. And Chadli has been a big part of that.
Unheralded at Tottenham, he has contributed goals and assists for Tony Pulis, as well as upping his work rate and earning a return to the Belgian national team with his impressive performances. In the modern marketplace, he looks a snip at £13m.
It is a mark of De Bruyne’s undoubted quality that, despite a massive price-tag, almost no-one would question that he was worth it. The Belgian has it all, a superb range of passing, a brilliant eye for spotting a team-mate, and even a decent goal return.
When he arrived he looked magnificent, and despite a serious knee injury last year he has bounced back to his best. If City are to grow into a major force under Pep Guardiola, he will surely be at the centre of the side.
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