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The French champions have their sights set on yet another Nerazzurri player: Hernan Crespo.
Olympique Lyonnais are going in search of their eighth successive Ligue 1 title this season, and they certainly have a fight on their hands this time around, as both Girondins Bordeaux and Olympique Marseille are threatening to halt their unbelievable run. As a result of this, the reigning champions are looking to the transfer market for answers, and consequently they have set their sights on two stars from Inter Milan. Having already been strongly linked to Mancini, the man that wowed the Stade de Gerland crowd in March 2007 as he scored a stunning goal for Roma in the Champions League, Lyon have more recently taken a fancy to Hernan Crespo, who is all but certain to leave the Milanese club in the near future. The Argentinean has confirmed his desire to remain in Milan until the end of the season, but Tuttomercatoweb suggests that he could be tempted to make a move this month if OL are to make an offer in the coming days. With the Inter president recently declaring that the Nerazzurri must trim their squad, the sale of Crespo to Lyon could be beneficial for both the player and the clubs involved. The French champions will also have to contend with Tottenham, as they have also expressed interest in the veteran striker previously.

Goal.com Special: 10 Worst Premier League Transfers 2008-09


It's that time of year again, as Goal.com's Sulmaan Ahmad looks back on some of the more forgetful signings of the season...

The Premier League has continued to eclipse its competitors in the transfer market this season, but shrewd acquisitions continue to be few and far between all across the board.

What has distinguished this season from last is that the bottom clubs have generally spent what little money they have quite well, while the big clubs have recruited less than in previous years.

Most foreign imports have settled better than usual, while many of the season's biggest disappointments have been domestic deals and particularly British players.

Any coach, player or chairman will try and put a positive spin on their bad buys, but when they can't even get in the team, fail to live up to their price tag, don't fit into the tactical setup or even end up lasting less than a season, it's time for one and all to hold their hands up.

But they don't - so I'll do it for them.

10) David N'Gog (Paris Saint-Germain to Liverpool - £1.5m)

When most people hear the name David N'Gog, they laugh. Try it now. Why is it so funny? It might be that some of a less cultured tongue pronounce it 'Enn-Gogg' - which admittedly has an amusing sort of sound to it - but the average football fan is far more likely to be baffled by just how the young striker ended up playing for Liverpool despite not being very good at playing football.

He is a young, tall and fast striker and didn't cost a lot. It was 'touch N'Gog' (that's how you say his name) over whether to even include him on the list - we could all yet be proven wrong - but thus far, the Frenchman has only succeeded at looking woefully out of his depth. And it's not as if he had even proven anything at the point Rafa Benitez snapped him up from PSG.

He has essentially become Fernando Torres' deputy at Anfield for several stretches this season, and upon failing to impress, is likely to be shunted down the pecking order this summer.

9) Younes Kaboul (Tottenham Hotspur to Portsmouth - £6m)

And we have a repeat-entry! Down one place from last year is the big man who continues to command fairly big money but doesn't seem to be all that good. He flopped at Tottenham last season and now at Portsmouth, a club so short of cash, he has failed to live up to his £6m billing (though the official fee remains undisclosed).

It seems, though, he may have at least found a home at Fratton Park. Maybe. Pompey don't quite have the money to throw away that Spurs do and thus they will want to get as much value out of their man as is possible.

He can hit a mean shot, and has grabbed a couple of headlines off the back of his big goals, but lest we forget he is a defender. He hasn't quite worked out that part of his game yet.

Dave Kitson (Reading to Stoke City - £5.5m)

Dave Kitson was signed by Stoke for a club record transfer fee. He would be the bright spark of Premier League experience in front of goal to keep the Potters in the top flight.

Well, he's here, so suffice to say it didn't work out. The only thing bright about Kitson at Stoke was his hair, and he can't take credit for his genetics.

It's safe enough to say he's just not in the Stoke mould. He's something of a late bloomer, a classy striker and without doubt a good player, but Stoke are another type of team altogether. He didn't blend into his surroundings, to say the least.

He played 18 games and didn't score a single goal - and so he went back on loan to Reading. Even Steve Coppell managed to crack a smile and squeal out a laugh at this sorry state of affairs. Win-win.

7) Andrew Johnson (Everton to Fulham - £10.5m)

Another striker, another club record signing and another one who has some kind of aversion to scoring goals. It goes without saying that if Fulham as a team hadn't been doing so well, then AJ would have found himself much, much higher up the list. Luckily for him, the Cottagers haven't had to score a lot to win.

He has worked hard and never looked completely out of his depth, but he may as well have been Steve Marlet. Bobby Zamora may not have scored a lot either, but he was half the price and has been considerably more valuable an outlet for the team all season. Make no bones about it: Johnson is a flop. He doesn't even have the time-honoured excuse of being a youngster and being able to grow into his talents.

The fact there was such a debacle over completing his signing after the medical scare should have been the sign that the usually shrewd Roy Hodgson needed to call off the deal, but he didn't. It will be interesting to see whether the Hodge is willing to swallow his pride and replace his big-money man this summer. After all, one transfer window of tremendous work from the experienced coach turned Fulham into a decent team - imagine what another could do?

6) Xisco (Deportivo La Coruna to Newcastle United - £5.7m)

It's been quite a season on Tyneside. A power struggle of some description between former recruitment man Tony Jimenez, director of football Dennis Wise and part-time coach, part-time Messiah Kevin Keegan culminated in a comical beginning to this season (and it has since, like any good comedy, only gotten funnier).

Xisco was one of Jimenez's men, brought in for a fairly substantial amount of money and not given much of a fair shake. He's never been the best prospect in the world, or even close for that matter, but to end up fifth choice at the club, even behind Shola Ameobi, means you're doing something, somewhere, incredibly wrong.

5) Jo (CSKA Moscow to Manchester City - £19m)

Something about this move seemed wrong from the beginning. Right player, wrong club. He was never worth the reported £19m anyway, and following his bumpy start that found him in and out of the side, he was loaned out to Everton.

There, he is finding his feet, but David Moyes has already suggested he cannot afford to sign him, which suggests City will either be stuck with a player they don't want or taking a significant loss on him this summer when they sell him on. Big money, bad business - the two go hand-in-hand.

He's still young, but he will never be Drogba. Admittedly, his touch of Brazilian flair means that magic can be produced at any given moment, but for the most part he really is just your average Jo.

4) Deco (Barcelona to Chelsea - £8m)

Many fancied themselves as real experts when Chelsea snapped up Deco from Barcelona. A real bargain. A top-quality flair player. Just what they need. The 'missing piece'.

They must have felt so proud of themselves two or three games into the season, while the Portuguese international was still fresh, fit and enjoying the sunshine. Consistency is another matter altogether.

The days are long gone that Deco can battle from one end of the season to another, and thus he was never, ever going to go the distance in the Premier League. He is what many in England would consider a luxury player. Quite why he snubbed Inter, a team he would have slotted into with far more ease, to join up with 'Big Phlop' Scolari is beyond pretty much everybody.

The funniest thing of all about the signing was Chelsea buying a third egotistical attacking midfielder for one position. Admittedly, Guus Hiddink has found a good place for Ballack alongside Lampard within his current setup, but there was never going to be a place for Deco. Not now, not ever - he should, if he has any sense, get out at the first available opportunity.

3) Marlon: A King-Size Flop

Roy Hodgson is still breathing a never-ending sigh of relief. Not only has he transformed Fulham from relegation battlers to Europa League contenders, but we can't forget that he was moments away from signing Marlon King, only for the big man to fail Fulham's notoriously stringent medical.

He is a powerful striker with one hell of a shot on him, but if you believe what you read, he'd much rather spend his time hitting women and only using his head to butt Dean Windass in a Scarborough casino. Football is an afterthought.

Wigan picked him up from Watford, Hull then loaned him from the Latics and after his disastrous spell there, he went down another rung to a hopeless Middlesbrough side.

Think of him as Stan Collymore without quite so much talent. Who knows where he'll end up next season, that is if he manages to stay out of jail.

2) David Bentley (Blackburn Rovers to Tottenham Hotspur - £15m)

People never really realised how hard it was being David Beckham until they prematurely decided that a man with the same name, same haircut (well, Becks must have had it at some point) and a similar playing style will automatically fill his shoes on the international stage and realised just how catastrophically wrong they were.

David Bentley isn't even as good as an ageing David Beckham is now - what makes anybody think that will ever change? He has indisputable ability, but lacks the world class quality of his predecessor and doesn't seem to be progressing as many expected he would, either.

He signed for his supposed 'dream club', Tottenham, for a substantial initial fee of £15m and unless his goal of the season contender against Arsenal - the club that snubbed him as a youth and of course Spurs' greatest rivals - is worth all that, then he's still an unbridled flop. He has a lot more work to do.

1) Robbie Keane (Tottenham Hotspur to Liverpool - £19m)

Was Robbie Keane really Rick Parry's signing, or was that Rafa Benitez's last-ditch attempt at saving face once he realised his monumental error? When you think bad transfers, you generally tend to think Spurs. They're usually involved. But Liverpool fans will be cursing their luck for being on the wrong end of this one.

This was Rafa's fourth or fifth 'last piece of the puzzle' signing, the dream partner for Fernando Torres, a player of proven Premier League quality joining his dream club ... what went wrong?

Two words: Steven Gerrard. Benitez has finally found a system that puts Gerrard where he belongs - in attacking midfield - which is a system that only accommodates one striker, and that of course is Fernando Torres. It's true, Keane would be a dream partner for 'El Nino', but he can't compete with the club captain. It was never going to work. Stevie was never going to settle for right wing again (and why should he?) while Rafa wouldn't be quite so courageous as to put him in central midfield and risk over-exposing his side.

The only way Keane and Gerrard could have ever co-existed is if the Reds adopted a similar system to England, with the only problem there being that Keane, while good, isn't exactly Wayne Rooney when it comes to an all-round range of abilities, not to mention telepathic understanding with Stevie G.

It just wasn't meant to be, and humiliatingly, the Reds sold Keane back to Spurs in January, making a loss of anywhere between £6-8m. Oh well, there's always next year.

Goal.com Special: 10 Worst Serie A Transfers 2008-09

Yesterday Goal.com brought you the 10 worst flops from the English Premier League, today Carlo Garganese offers the Serie A failures…

Some big names arrived in Italy in the summer of 2008. On the coaching side of things, arguably the joint-best club coach in the world, and certainly the most controversial and entertaining, Jose Mourinho, took charge of Inter. Meanwhile, on the playing side, Milan and Inter spent big money respectively on Barcelona's Ronaldinho and Porto's Ricardo Quaresma. Like many of the other expensive purchases, neither of these took Serie A by storm.

Any coach, player or president will try and put a positive spin on their bad buys, but when they can't even get in the team, fail to live up to their price tag, don't fit into the tactical setup or even end up lasting less than a season, it's time for one and all to hold their hands up.

But they don't - so Goal.com will do it for them.

10) Julio Baptista (Roma) – Despite scoring eight Serie A goals, including the winner in the derby, it cannot be underestimated just how costly Baptista has been to Roma’s season. Painfully inconsistent, Baptista has had his excellent moments, including a couple of wonder-goals, but these have been rare. ‘The Beast’ almost single-handedly cost the Giallorossi qualification into the quarter finals of the Champions League by missing a sitter against Arsenal.

9) Juan Pablo Carrizo (Lazio) – Carrizo was supposed to join Lazio at the start of the 2007/08 season, but passport problems meant that the move was delayed for a whole year. The 24-year-old would have done well during this period to hone his goalkeeping skills, as his time between the sticks in Rome has been full or errors. The Argentine No.1 has lost his first team place to Nestor Muslera, and will need to improve immensely if he is to win it back. Carrizo looks like a vampire, and just like the mythological creatures he hates crosses.

Bruno Fornaroli (Sampdoria) – Promised to be the ‘Uruguayan Pippo Inzaghi’ when he arrived in Genoa from Nacional Montevideo. Emphatically failed to live up to this tag, and it soon became clear that he was not ready for Serie A. The 21-year-old made just five Serie A appearances, scoring no goals, and was loaned out to San Lorenzo at the end of January. The player who has replaced him at the Stadio Ferraris, Giampaolo Pazzini, has been a revelation.

7) Christian Vieri (Atalanta) – The Atalanta board should have listened to their supporters, who desperately tried to prevent this free transfer from going through. The 35-year-old has spent the season either injured, counting his rolls of belly fat, out-of-form, resembling Russell Crowe, or repeatedly abused by Atalanta tifosi. With just nine appearances and two goals, it was decided earlier this month to rescind Vieri’s contract.

6) Sergio Almiron (Fiorentina) – When you take on loan a player who is famous for being one of Alessio Secco’s worst buys, do not expect Diego Maradona or Pele. Almiron has made just 12 league appearances, seven of them starts, and he has been over-run in almost every game he has appeared in. With Riccardo Montolivo also disappointing, Felipe Melo has almost single-handedly held the Viola midfield together. Almiron will return to Turin this summer, but not for long.

5) Andriy Shevchenko (Milan) – It is signings like this that lead to Serie A being tagged as a ‘retirement home’. Shevchenko had proven conclusively during two seasons at Chelsea that he was a shadow of the once world-beating Golden Ball winner. It did not take Milan long to realise that it was a mistake loaning the Ukrainian, who has made just two league starts, failing to hit the back of the net. Unlikely to make his move permanent, it is now three years since Shevchenko last scored in Serie A.

4) Simone Loria (Roma) – The worst defender in the whole of Italy, and possibly Europe, this term. Loria made so many high-profile gaffes in the early part of the season that there could almost be a Christmas bloopers video just on him. Has basically been frozen out of the squad since the turn of the year, but one wonders what possessed Roma to relinquish a very promising young midfielder in Daniele Galloppa as part of the Loria deal. Brings back memories of Inter swapping Fabio Cannavaro for Fabian Carini.

3) Amantino Mancini (Inter) – Quaresma has taken most of the flack in the blue-and-black half of Milan, but, in truth, Mancini has been just as much of a catastrophe. While Roma’s transfer campaign was very poor, one good piece of business was offloading the Brazilian, who was clearly on the wane physically. Mancini has made 16 Serie A appearances, just nine of them starts, scoring no goals. One of the reasons why Mourinho’s favoured 4-3-3 formation was scrapped was because of the sub-standard Mancini and Quaresma. The ex-Venezia man will surely be offloaded at the end of this season.

2) Christian Poulsen (Juventus) – Was there anyone who seriously believed that Poulsen would be a success? The Juventus hierarchy had spent the first half of 2008 promising a world class centre midfielder to bring the Scudetto back to Piedmont. It was no surprise that supporters felt betrayed when Poulsen was unveiled. Fans launched angry protests and erected a huge banner that read: “Ridiculous, you’ve signed another rubbish player.” The Dane has certainly matched this description – nervous, wasteful in possession, and making very few of the no-nonsense tackles he was supposedly infamous for.

1) Ricardo Quaresma (Inter) – Will go down as one of the most expensive flops in the history of Italian football. Signed from Porto for just under €20m after a summer-long soap saga, it soon became apparent that Jose Mourinho had made a big mistake. Spent the majority of games hiding away like a bullied schoolchild, when Quaresma did receive the ball, he lost it virtually every time. His confidence shot to pieces, he was loaned out to Chelsea in January where he has continued to disappoint. Luiz Felipe Scolari’s decision to call him was perhaps the final sign that the Gene Hackman-lookalike had lost the plot at Stamford Bridge. He was sacked not long after.