The year 2016 saw many flop players in the English Premier League. Let us have a look at the five worst players of the league in the year 2016.
- Nicolas Otamendi
The Manchester City player struggled a lot as compared to his team mate Raheem Sterling. The defender had a tough time as opposed to his forward playing team mate. In fact, Otamedi is the one who disappointed his club a lot in the last season of the EPL.
Otamendi failed to live up to his high fee of £34m and to step into the breach, when Vincet Kompany was absent from the team quite often due to his injury. Oatmendi never touched the form like he did at Valencia. He was all the time outplayed, outclassed, and outpaced in the 2015-16 season of the English Premier League.
- Memphis Depay
The Manchester United player got a football season that he must surely forget, that is, the 2015-16 season of the Premier League. He was signed for £25m in the summer in order to provide some incision and pace to the left wing of Manchester United.
Although, Memphis started well in the last year’s season of the Champions League with 2 goals against Club Brugge and one goal against PSV Eindhoven, his old team, yet the Dutchman did little to justify the number 7 written on his shirt and his signing price tag.
It seemed that Depay can continue with his form that led him to score 22 goals in 30 matches of the league in the Netherlands. But, he let down his club as well as his fans with just two goals in the EPL in 16 starts. He was expected to play more than two goals with his exorbitant signing money.
One of the known mistakes of Depay is giving the back-header to Dave de Gea that resulted in the opening goal for Stoke in their 2 to 0 win. He also got overshadowed by the emergence of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial. This shows that the Dutch winger could not settle in his first season in England.
- Eden Hazard
Although, Eden won the Football Writer and the PFA’s Player of the Year award and was named the player of the year for Chelsea for a consecutive second season last year, the Belgian player has been an unsatisfactory player in the Chelsea club this year.
Besides Costa and Favregas, Eden Hazard was one of the other bad players of Chelsea. The attacker got a thigh and hip injury and his displays remained impotent. He also lacked the pace and fizz on which his game relied.
Hazard took almost a year to follow his strike in May 2015 against Crystal Palace with one of the other goals in the league, which was against Southampton this year in April. Although, Hazard played better in the final games of the 2015-16 EPL season, he still missed the impressive performance that he displayed during the fiery match of Chelsea vs. Tottenham in May.
- Cesc Fabregas
Although, Cesc topped the statistic charts in the 2014-15 season of the Premier League with his assists and ball touches, in the previous season he was quite bad in his form. Where he played a major role in the title win of Chelsea in the 2015-16 league season, this year he played badly.
Fabregas was ostensibly signed in 2014 as a Frank Lampard replacement for Chelsea’s midfield. Although, he lacked the dynamism of his predecessor, he had more creativity than Lampard. Nobody helped Fabregas this year, as Matic lumbered, Oscar remained absent or erratic, and Mikel Jogn Obi remained inconsistent. Owing to all this, the pressure was on Fabregas to prove his talent in defense and attack with quick passes. Moreover, he did not get any help with the front attitude of Diego Costa.
- Gabriel Agbonlahor
Seydou Doumbia has been awful for Newcastle, Christian Benteke has been bad for Liverpool, but Gabriel Agbonlahor was the worst for Aston Villa this year. Despite being a dominant voice in the dressing room and the captain of the Aston Villa club, the striker became very much unfit that he was not even selected. He was also photographed in Dubai, while he was smoking a shisha pipe and thus faced an investigation from the club due to it.
Agbonlahor just scored one goal in a total of his 18 appearances. And not only this, by the end of the 2015-2016 EPL season, Gabriel was training in the reserves, got transferred from the side, and quit his captaincy, all of which make him the worst player for Aston Villa, just like Randy Lerner as both of them had the power and potential but ignored it.
Apart from these, some of the other flop players in the 2016 year of the English Premier League were Theo Walcott of Arsenal and Jack Grealish of Aston Villa. Walcott struggled for form and was out with a long-standing injury.
Grealish had the worst-ever season of the EPL after Aston Villa did not score a single point in 16 matches of the English Premier League where Grealish appeared. Additionally, Tokelo Rantie of Bournemouth was also a bad player with the worst defense record this year in the Premier League. So, these are the biggest flop players in the league in 2016.
