I want to come up with some instances where a big time player left a club for a high fee and was replaced with someone else and if that was eventually a success or a failure. Try to come up with some examples from the past 10 years. The ones I thought of immediately are: Franck Ribery left Marseille and replaced with Karim Ziani from Sochaux. Safe to say this was a huge flop. Ziani only cost over 8m but was not the solution. Nasri left Marseille and replaced with Ben Arfa from Lyon. This should have been a success due to Ben Arfa's talent and abilty but it was a flop because of his attitude problems. Bought for over 10.5 m and sold for a little over 2m. Complete flop. Benzema leaves Lyon and replaced with Lisandro from Porto. Overall success due to his production even though he was just sold for not even close to what they paid for him. Not a transfer but Fernando Morientes had an amazing season for Monaco and after he returned to Real Madrid they tried to do the same thing again by getting Javier Saviola on loan from Barca. Safe to say it wasnt as successful. Michael Essien leaves Lyon and is replaced with Tiago from Chelsea. Umm he was only there for 2 years but I believe it was 2 successful seasons.
Btw, I cant remember who replaced Gourcuff at Bordeaux. He was sold for a big sum but I cant remember who they brought in after. Probably no one special since I cant remember lol.
I think they attempted the "homegrown" way with marginal guys like Sertic and Abdou Traoré, didn't work.
Hazard replaced by Marvin Martin and other guys, OK, obviously this one is cruel I guess to the replacements given Hazard is probably the best player Ligue 1 has produced in a decade, though yeah, that didn't work, and maybe more discouragingly, Lille didn't hold on to Thauvin although that is a year later.
- The money Marseille got from Drogba's transfer was used to sign Pedretti, Eduardo Costa, Fiorese, Bamogo and Luyindula. - Bordeaux replaced Pauleta by Deivid. - Ronaldinho replaced by Hakan Yakin...oops I meant Boskovic. - Heinze, Dehu, Fiorese and Sorin replaced by Yepes, Armand, Ateba, Coridon, Pancrate and Rothen ( ). - Nene (Monaco) replaced by Malonga, Aubameyang, Niculae and M'bokani for an amazing result : L2.
Wow, good memory. Thats just awful. Napoli sold Cavani and brought in Higuain. Wow oh why couldnt have OM did something like that back then? They have some sort of weird reluctance to go outside of France. Probably Anigo at work.