6 brilliant footballers who made 10 or fewer Premier League appearances
Premier League longevity isn’t for everyone. Some ballers simply fleet in and out of it, like a butterfly that flashes its colours in the outer hedgerow of your field of vision, disappearing as swiftly as it arrived, but leaving an impression your mind processes for far longer.
It might be a brief loan spell in the last throes of a legendary career, a managerial bust-up, a freak injury… There are a myriad of reasons for the fleeting Premier League career. We find these players and their stories fascinating.
We’ve identified six properly class footballers who played ten or fewer games in the Premier League before they moved on, swept along with the everchanging winds of football fate, like little paper aeroplanes. Speaking of which…
Vincenzo Montella
Current Turkey national team manager Montella was some player in his day.
A 5’8″ striker who scored tons of goals in Roma, they called him Aeroplanino (Little Aeroplane) because of his trademark celebration, which you’ve probably replicated at some point in your life without realising who you were copying.
In 2007, when his Serie A career was finally beginning its descent for landing, the Italian uomo della borsa (that literally means ‘bagsman’ in Italian but we’re aware bagsman isn’t a thing in Italy—don’t come for us, nerds) enjoyed a brief loan spell in West London, playing ten league games for Fulham.
He scored three goals in those ten appearances as well. You never lose that scoring touch.
Brian Laudrup
After four brilliant years at Rangers, Danish legend Laudrup (the younger of the brothers) signed for Chelsea, and immediately regretted it.
Just before the 1998 World Cup, and one day after he’d agreed to move to Chelsea, Alex Ferguson called Laudrup up to try and get him to sign for Manchester United. Brian would’ve preferred the move to Manchester but had signed for the Blues 24 hours earlier.
Laudrup apparently wasn’t happy with the idea of squad rotation and tried to get out of his contract, but Chelsea were having none of it. He played seven Premier League games for the Blues, and then it was on to Copenhagen.
Henrik Larsson
Celtic’s king of kings was Sweden’s talisman before Zlatan Ibrahimovic was old enough to go to the cinema alone. A crown of dreadlocks upon his head, Predator Manias adorning his feet, sitting atop a throne of goals.
After his late career spell at Barcelona, Larsson came home to Sweden, joining Helsingborgs, and embellished that stint with a loan spell at Manchester United.
Ruud van Nistelrooy had moved on to Madrid, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Alan Smith were injured, leaving Wayne Rooney and Louis Saha up top for Man United.
Larsson was brought in as a bench option with proven pedigree. He only played seven Premier League games for the Red Devils, but he was brilliant, and it’s just a shame we didn’t see more of him in England. You win this one, Scotland.
READ: Remembering Henrik Larsson’s brief but brilliant Manchester United loan
Brahim Diaz
Diaz was never really given a chance to shine at Manchester City. The Spanish-born Moroccan international came up through Malaga’s youth ranks before joining up with Phil Foden at City’s academy.
Unfortunately, Foden and Diaz are the same height, same build, and play pretty much the same position. Foden is still at City, Diaz isn’t. Brahim played five PL games for City before heading back out to Spain to join Real Madrid.
Game time was scarce, but a three-year loan to Milan was the making of him, eventually proving instrumental as they won the Scudetto in 2021-22. Brahim found his feet, got into his stride, and is now enjoying a Real Madrid renaissance.
READ NEXT: Remembering Henrik Larsson’s brief but brilliant Manchester United loan spell
TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the players who are their country’s only Premier League representative?
Ricardo Quaresma
Your brain will tell you Quaresma played 200 games for every club he joined and scored nothing but trivelas. Your brain is wrong.
Rumours that Quaresma took stem cells from the outside of his right foot, grew three more feet from scratch and had the outside of each of those feet grafted onto the inside of his right foot and both sides of his left foot, resulting in being physically incapable of kicking the ball with anything but the outside of his right foot are also wide of the mark.
During Quaresma’s spell at Inter, Jose Mourinho said of the Portuguese winger:
“I am sure he’ll change and become more tactically disciplined. He likes kicking the ball with the outside of his foot, but if you ask me about him in a few months’ time, we’ll be talking about a different Quaresma.”
Jose Mourinho was wrong.
What is true is that Ricardo Quaresma ended up out on loan at Chelsea for five months and participated in four Premier League matches.
Luc Nilis
If you don’t know about Luc Nilis, you should get to know about Luc Nilis. A legendary striker at PSV Eindhoven, with a skill set not dissimilar to Dennis Bergkamp. If you think we’re exaggerating the bloke’s talents, don’t take it from us, take it from O Fenomeno Ronaldo Nazario:
“I’ve played with big players like Figo, Romário, Zidane, Rivaldo, Djorkaeff and Raúl, but it clicked best with Luc Nilis, whom I played with at PSV. He was simply fantastic, the greatest partner I had played with, despite sharing a brief time with him.”
Zinedine Zidane? Nah, thanks. Figo? You’re alright, mate. Romario? Pass. Ronaldo loved playing with Nilis and Nilis loved playing with Ronaldo.
In fact, take a pause here and type his name in on YouTube and just enjoy a plethora of first touches and finishes that will make you go, oooft f*cking hell.
After six years in Eindhoven, the Belgian striker joined Aston Villa. Scored on his European debut and his league debut (the league goal against Chelsea is a beauty—flicks it up with his right foot, smashed a volley with his left).
Three games into his Premier League career, however, an unfortunate 50/50 clash with Ipswich keeper Richard Wright left Nilis with a double compound fracture in his shin, which became infected and ended the Belgian’s career. An absolute crying shame.