We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Turning up on a Sunday morning, maybe a bit worse for wear – at least that’s the excuse you give – before putting in a performance worthy of the Hall of Shame.We’re talking ball rolling under your foot bad, open goal misses kind of bad. The type of performances that really make you think, is this it? Is it time to bring an illustrious career of games on what we somehow call football pitches to an end? The answer, by the way, is definitely a yes. Hang those 20-year-old boots up.If only professional footballers could forget about a disasterclass so easily. Instead, their mistakes are thrown into compilations, to be forever remembered, and eventually thrown into lists such as this.With that said, after fans took to Twitter to name the worst performances in Premier League history, we at Football FanCast have ranked them.
5 Dejan Lovren vs Tottenham Hotspur, 2017
Ironically, without this performance from Dejan Lovren, Liverpool may not have gone on to win every trophy possible in club football in the six years that followed. This October day to forget was the final straw for Jurgen Klopp, who welcomed Virgil van Dijk in January. And the rest is history.
Nonetheless, the performance still deserves a place on this list after the defender was at fault for two of Tottenham Hotspur’s first goals, before being hooked in the 31st minute.
4 Romelu Lukaku vs Crystal Palace, 2022
You have to feel for Romelu Lukaku here, in a way. He started life back at Chelsea so well, practically bullying Arsenal on his debut, finding the back of the net as the Blues won 2-0.
It went downhill from there, however, culminating in an embarrassing afternoon for the Belgian against Crystal Palace, as he touched the ball just seven times – a Premier League record – as Chelsea avoided a narrow escape to seal all three points.
His time at Stamford Bridge is summed up by that game.
3 Tiemoue Bakayoko vs Watford, 2018
When Tiemoue Bakayoko first joined Chelsea, the immediate partnership that he formed with N’Golo Kante was one of the best in the Premier League as the London club won the league title under Antonio Conte.
That was as good as it got for the Frenchman, though, in a short peak of form in England’s top flight.
The midfielder’s display against Watford in 2018 was the nail in the coffin, as the Hornets smashed Chelsea 4-1 after Bakayoko was sent off just 30 minutes in, having looked way off the pace throughout.
Here’s a brilliant Twitter compilation showing just had bad he was:
2 Steven Gerrard vs Manchester United, 2015
When Brendan Rodgers benched Steven Gerrard against Manchester United back in 2015, he would have done so with the thought in the back of his mind of lighting a fire underneath the Liverpool captain.
This would mean that when Rodgers did need to turn to the Reds legend, he would have himself a player ready to turn the game around. Benching Gerrard didn’t just light a fire, however, it lit a raging, destructive inferno.
Indeed, the captain stepped from the bench at half-time, before launching into challengers, and receiving an instant red card just 38 seconds after coming on – the third-fastest dismissal in PL history.
Speaking in his book which was serialised by the Daily Mail, Gerrard said of the incident: As I left the pitch I asked myself: “What have you just done? Are you f****** stupid?”
1 Jonathan Walters vs Chelsea, 2013
You’d have thought it can’t get much worse than scoring two own goals in a Premier League game, but Jonathan Walters somehow took things another level further by then missing a penalty at the other end against Chelsea.
We’re not just talking any penalty miss here, either. No. We’re talking, the ball is likely still travelling high into the sky type of missed penalty. It simply cannot get worse than the game Walters had.
First came the own goals, which, to his credit, were two inch-perfect headers – albeit at the wrong end – to give Chelsea a two-goal advantage. The Blues then went on to score twice more to make it 4-0 against Stoke City, before their top goalscorer for the day had a chance to restore face, only to blast his penalty over the bar.
It doesn’t get any worse than that.
