Here are the 10 most overpaid players in the English Premier League considering their current form and ability, ranked from lowest to highest paid per week. Read, weep and debate

David Bentley, £50,000 P/W

Let’s start off with a relatively measly £50,000 p/w, which is what Tottenham Hotspur’s David Bentley is currently earning, according to the Daily Mail.


Yes, Bentley is still contracted to Spurs despite not having played for them in the last few seasons.

For a mid-table Premier League star or a squad player at a top four club, perhaps a weekly wage of £50,000 wouldn’t be too big of an outrage, but for a player who’s been turning out at the Championship level (Blackburn Rovers most recently), it’s a travesty.

We’d be surprised if Andre Villas-Boas kept him on this summer, but until the day he finally leaves White Hart Lane, Bentley is still one of the most overpaid players in the top flight.

Here’s another outcast, though not to the extent that Bentley has been.

Darren Bent - £65,000 P/W

Darren Bent—who two years ago signed for Aston Villa for a whopping £24 million and was once considered the premier English goal-scorer—is now languishing on the sidelines at Villa Park and doesn’t appear to belong in Paul Lambert’s plans.

All this while picking up a handy £65,000 every week, according to the Mirror.

Not bad for the Bents, but a stumbling obstacle for the Villans, a team looking to offload the ex-England striker to free up their wage book this summer.

[/b]Stephen Ireland - £80,000 P/W

Oh yes, you read that right: Stephen Ireland earns £80,000 at Aston Villa, according Goal.com.

The same Stephen Ireland who was supposed to become one of the league's most exciting goal-scoring midfielders during his time at Manchester City and was linked with another money-spinning move—this time to New York Red Bulls of MLS—last year, according to the same report.

Ireland’s wages make him a top priority for a Villa Park exit this summer, so why would an MLS club, with their salary policies, take a chance on him?

Not that Ireland himself would mind too much, of course.

[b]Andy Carroll - £90,000 p/w

Andy Carroll, the all-time most expensive British footballer ever at £35 million, has traded St. James’ Park for Anfield, and now for West Ham United’s Upton Park.

Carroll, who might turn out to be a quite formidable England center-forward yet, is a textbook example of a square peg in a round hole. When Brendan Rodgers arrived at Liverpool to form a team in its historic pass-and-move mold, he quickly determined that Carroll just didn’t quite meet his requirements.

So, a season in London and seven league goals on, he has the choice of moving to West Ham on a permanent deal, according to the Guardian.

The mooted fee, £15 million, seems more reasonable than the £35 million Kenny Dalglish paid, and perhaps soon the Reds will rid themselves of the quite flabbergasting £90,000 p/w Carroll is currently on.

Joleon Lescott - £90,000 p/w

It’s not surprising that big wages are linked to big transfer fees, but it is most definitely surprising that Joleon Lescott once cost £22 million, according to BBC Sport.

Lescott played a big part in Manchester City’s first ever Premier League title last season but has rightly been replaced by the precocious Matija Nastasic this term.

He remains a solid defender for both club and country and, if he moves on this summer, will most likely remain in the top flight and would prove a good acquisition for his new club.

He’d have to take a wage cut though—because at £90,000 a week, according to the Daily Mail, he’d find no suitors outside of his current club.

Emmanuel Adebayor - £170,000 P/W

Another player who had an impressive 2011-2012 campaign but has been off the boil this past season is Tottenham Hotspur’s Emmanuel Adebayor.

After an exciting season on loan from City at White Hart Lane, Spurs went all out to secure his permanent signature last summer, at a transfer fee of around £5 million, according to the Telegraph.

To facilitate the transfer, Adebayor reportedly had to take a considerable pay cut from his reported £170,000-a-week wages at the Etihad Stadium, with City offering a sizeable payoff to the Togolese striker.

Not that £100,000 a week is worth the hassle, though. Especially for a return of five league goals all year.

Ashley Young, £130,000 P/W

When Manchester United won the race for Ashley Young for a reported £16 million, according to the Mirror, it was celebrated as a triumph over their club rivals Manchester City and Liverpool and a coup at a relatively modest amount for an exciting winger.

There’s always a different story beneath the transfer fee, though.

At £130,000 a week, Young has commanded at least £13 million in basic wages since his move to Old Trafford, and that’s not even including performance-based bonuses.

But if he keeps performing at this season’s level, he won’t be in for too much of those.


Samir Nasri, £170,000 P/W

At the end of last season, after Manchester City won their first Premier League title, Samir Nasri immediately taunted his former club Arsenal by saying that he moved to the Etihad for sporting success, according to the Guardian.

He was, of course, responding to jibes that he'd moved for the money, which wouldn't have been too surprising given that City doubled his wages to a whopping £170,000 per week.

It must be said that in his maiden campaign in a City shirt, Nasri performed well and was a key player in the title-winning season.

A year on, after being roundly criticized publicly by ex-manager Roberto Mancini, it certainly doesn't seem the case anymore. But with a considerable sum sitting in his bank account, Nasri will likely have the last laugh.

Fernando Torres, £175,000 P/W

At the end of the 2008-2009 season, when Liverpool finished second in the league, Fernando Torres' reputation was sky-high. A £50 million valuation wouldn't have been far off.

A year and a half onward in January 2011, an injury-weakened Torres, who seemed slightly off-form during the first half of the season, was the subject of the same sizeable bid from Chelsea, and he was off.

Torres' reported £175,000-a-week base salary, which excluded image rights and bonuses, according to ESPNFC, reflected how highly Roman Abramovich rated the Spanish striker.

What transpired in the next few years is well-known. He might have turned in a better 2012-2013 season, but he still far from the Fernando Torres that we all saw in a Red shirt.

Wayne Rooney, £250,000 P/W

In October 2010, Manchester United's Wayne Rooney put in a transfer request, citing concerns over the club's squad strength, according to BBC Sport.

It ended up resolving itself nicely, with Rooney signing a new contract just days after the transfer request and boosting his own wage package to £250,000 a week (Telegraph), but evidently then-manager Sir Alex Ferguson took heed of Rooney's worries.

In the following few seasons, Ferguson continued to strengthen his squad, topping it off with the marquee capture of Arsenal's Robin van Persie last summer.

The result? An off-form Rooney was demoted to the bench after the star signing overshadowed his previous importance to the team, naturally prompting yet another transfer request, according to Sky Sports.

Irony at its best.

Here is the source :
http://sports.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201305/106751.php

Hmmm cool

All my children including my wife must play football..i wod b dia MANAGER

Rooney isn't over paid

hustla: Rooney isn't over paid

yeah!!!

Fernando Torres is beginning to justify why he's earning that much. Let's just hope he continues like he's doing now, so that he could be removed from this list. Up Chelsea