Florian Wirtz and Xavi Simons next? Eight biggest Bundesliga to Premier League transfer flops

Borussia Dortmund plucked a 17-year-old Jadon Sancho out of the Manchester City academy back in 2017 and instantly handed him a first-team role. Over the next four years, he became one of the most exciting wingers in Europe, registering 107 goal involvements in just 137 appearances, while also getting his hands on a DFB-Pokal winners' medal alongside fellow young stars Haaland and Jude Bellingham.

In the summer of 2021, United made Sancho the second-most expensive English player ever when luring him away from Signal Iduna Park, and then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer confidently predicted the winger would "bring tremendous pace, flair and creativity to the team". Unfortunately, though, Sancho never made good on those words.

He has only scored 12 times for United to date, and has made more headlines for fallouts with managers than his exploits on the pitch. Sancho was exiled by both Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim, and after temporary spells with former club Dortmund and Chelsea, now finds himself on loan at Aston Villa with no guarantee of regular minutes. Despite possessing all the talent in the world, Sancho's attitude and lack of physicality have prevented him from making any meaningful impact in the Premier League, and he's seemingly been stricken by fear in a way he never was in Germany.

Christopher Nkunku has all the qualities a forward needs to succeed on the elite stage: pace, intelligence, immaculate technique and ruthlessness. RB Leipzig saw all of that between 2019 and 2023, as the Frenchman blasted in 70 goals in all competitions to become their talisman, and when Chelsea snapped him up for £52m ($68m) in June 2023, it was seen as a major coup.

But the step up in intensity from the Bundesliga to the Premier League proved too much for Nkunku. He was unable to build any sort of rhythm at Stamford Bridge due to a series of injuries, and after the emergence of Cole Palmer, he was restricted to a bit-part role. 

Nkunku left for AC Milan in the summer of 2025 with a respectable goals tally of 18 from 62 appearances, but few Chelsea fans were sad to see the back of him. Despite flashes of brilliance, the former Leipzig frontman wasn't robust enough for the rigours of English football and too often stood on the fringes of games instead of grabbing them by the scruff of the neck.

Kai Havertz was on the radar of almost every top club in Europe after a stunning rise to prominence at Leverkusen, where he recorded a combined total of 77 goals and assists after breaking out of their academy ranks. Chelsea eventually won the race for his signature at the end of the 2020 summer window, and some were even billing the Germany playmaker as the next Mesut Ozil despite it not being immediately clear how he would fit into the Blues' starting XI.

Leverkusen put Havertz's versatility to good use in No.8 and No.10 roles, but he was deployed predominantly upfront for Chelsea, and looked like a fish out of water. Indeed, his first season at the club yielded just four Premier League goals, and was only salvaged by his winning strike in the 2021 Champions League final against Manchester City.

Havertz continued to be a fixture in the Chelsea side over the next two seasons, but never properly silenced his doubters, and the Blues jumped at the chance to offload him when Arsenal came in with a £65m ($85m) bid in June 2023. It's been a similar story for Havertz at the Emirates Stadium, with consistency remaining largely elusive, and the 26-year-old's career has essentially been on hiatus in 2025 due to serious injuries.

Chelsea initially signed Christian Pulisic from Dortmund in January 2019, with ex-United States star Taylor Twellman describing the deal as a "watershed moment for the American soccer player". Borussia Dortmund were sad to lose a "characteristically flawless footballer", as their sporting director Michael Zorc put it, but Pulisic closed out his time at the club in disappointing fashion, losing his place to Sancho amid struggles for fitness.

That led BILD to claim Pulisic, then only 21 years of age, had "stagnated" and insist Chelsea were "mad" to spend so much money on him. Over the next four years, the German outlet was proven right. Although the USMNT star would pick up Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup winners' medals in west London, and deliver some memorable moments (including a hat-trick against Burnley and a brilliant solo goal against Manchester City), he was dogged by physical setbacks and hampered by Chelsea's chaotic transfer policy.

Pulisic gradually fell down the pecking order as competition for places in attack increased and never recovered. Chelsea eventually accepted a £36m ($47m) loss on the Dortmund academy product when shipping him off to Milan, where Pulisic has since replenished his confidence stocks.

"I felt pressure that I needed to do more when I did get on the pitch," he admitted to The Athletic when looking back on his time at Stamford Bridge last December. Bad luck also played a part, but Pulisic buckled under that pressure, and it remains to be seen whether he gets another chance at the very highest level, with standards at Milan no longer as high as in Serie A's golden years.

Chelsea triggered the cut-price £45m ($59m) release clause in Timo Werner's contract to lure him away from RB Leipzig in June 2020, tying the German to a five-year contract. Werner scored 93 goals in 157 games for Leipzig, including 28 in the Bundesliga in his final season at Red Bull Arena, and was seen as one of the most lethal strikers on the continent. 

But he never got close to that level of output at Chelsea. Werner netted just 10 Premier League goals across his first two seasons at the Bridge after being converted to a wide man, and became a something of a laughing stock for his poor finishing. 

Leipzig re-signed Werner for just £20m ($26m) in August 2022, though he returned to England on loan some 15 months later at Tottenham. He didn't make Chelsea think twice about their decision to give up on him so soon, though, mustering only three goals in a Spurs shirt, and the only time he made any headlines was when receiving a public rollicking from manager Ange Postecoglou for an "unacceptable" Europa League performance against Rangers. Now 29, Werner can't even get a game at Leipzig anymore. 

Eintracht Frankfurt have developed a sterling reputation for the development of top-class forwards over the last six years or so, with Sebastien Haller among their early success stories. The Bundesliga outfit signed the Ivory Coast frontman from Utrecht for just £6m in May 2017, and he went on to repay that investment ten-fold, registering 33 goals and setting up another 19 across all competitions in just two seasons.

West Ham subsequently launched a club-record swoop for Haller after sanctioning the departures of Marko Arnautovic, Andy Carroll and Lucas Perez, and he was supposed to be a new long-term hero for the Hammers' faithful. Haller started well enough, too, with three goals in his first three Premier League outings, but ultimately finished the 2019-20 campaign with only seven to his name.

Haller was isolated in a lone striker role that didn't allow him to show off his impressive skills as a link-man, and after finding the net only three more times in the first half of the 2020-21 season, he was sold to Ajax for just £18m ($24m). The Ivorian admirably rebuilt his reputation in Amsterdam before earning another big move to Dortmund and inspiring the Ivory Coast to Africa Cup of Nations glory after overcoming testicular cancer. 

Although it is fair to say that Haller flopped at West Ham, his was the rare instance of a Premier League club failing a Bundesliga star, not the other way around.

Just like Haller, Niclas Fullkrug joined West Ham after establishing himself among the Bundesliga's finest marksmen. The Germany striker notched 15 goals for Dortmund in 2023-24, helping them reach the Champions League final, and scored twice for his country at Euro 2024. Fullkrug felt working under ex-Real Madrid boss Julen Lopetegui in the Premier League was the ideal next step, as he said at his unveiling: "I am confident that under him I will be able to perform at my best, and score lots of goals."

As it turned out, though, Fullkrug had hit his peak at 31. The former Werder Bremen and Hannover star has netted a meagre three goals in 24 Premier League appearances to date, with Lopetegui and Graham Potter, the Spaniard's successor, both failing to bring the best out of him.

The Hammers are now hoping that Nuno Espirito Santo can steer them away from relegation danger, but it's unlikely Fullkrug will form part of the Portuguese's plans. His agent, Thorsten Wirth, is already pushing for a January exit, as he revealed on the TOMorrow Business Podcast. “Looking back, we have to say the transfer didn’t work out,” Wirth said. “There’s no point in sugar-coating it. This always has to happen in cooperation with the club, but I believe it can make sense to change something there.”

Fullkrug is another who has been plagued by injuries, but his lack of self-awareness hasn't helped either. After a 1-1 draw with bottom club Southampton in April, he claimed his team-mates have a "mindset problem", before adding: "Sorry, we were sh*t. I’m very angry." He should have been more frustrated with himself for wasting their best chances, as he has done pretty much every time he's taken to the pitch.

Liverpool broke their transfer record to sign Naby Keita from Leipzig, and was even handed the club's iconic No.8 shirt by Steven Gerrard upon his arrival at Anfield. Jurgen Klopp described the Guinea international as a "complete midfielder", which didn't feel like a stretch at the time based on his 2016-17 campaign, where he had been the driving force behind their run to a second-place finish in their first-ever Bundesliga season. Keita had also impressed in the Champions League the following campaign, and it was expected that he would slot straight into the Reds' engine room.

But it quickly became apparent that Keita wasn't durable enough to succeed in the Premier League. According to The Athletic, Liverpool staff faced an uphill battle trying to get Keita accustomed to the increase in intensity and physicality both in training and in matches. 

It wasn't all bad, but Keita only played 47 per cent of Liverpool's 277 competitive matches between 2018 and 2023, and every time he looked set to kick on, a serious injury would set him back to square one. He was a dynamic, creative player at his best, but wasn't disciplined enough defensively and opposing teams exploited his weaknesses.

Liverpool eventually let Keita run his contract down and he joined Werder Bremen on a free transfer in June 2023. He has now faded into complete anonymity on loan at Hungarian club Ferencvaros, having been essentially thrown out by Werder for refusing to board the team bus for a game against Leverkusen.