Sunderland will always regret Chelsea deal - it was £8m down the drain | OneFootball

Sunderland bought Papa Djilobodji from Chelsea for £8m, but cancelled his contract just two years later.

Sunderland will always regret their deal to sign Papy Djilobodji from Chelsea for £8million, as it ultimately proved to be money down the drain.

The centre-back signed ahead of the 2016/17 season, but made just 18 league appearances as the Black Cats finished bottom of the Premier League and were relegated.

He then spent the following season out on loan, as Sunderland suffered back-to-back relegations, leaving them in the third tier of the English game for just the second time in club history.

Djilobodji never played another league game for the club after their disastrous top-flight campaign, and had his contract terminated after just two years at the club.

The Senegalese defender had reported back for pre-season as late as September and then failed a fitness test, meaning the Black Cats were unable to recoup any of their money. His signing will surely go down as one of the worst in their history.

Djilobodji was a total waste of money for Sunderland

Djilobodji arrived at Sunderland in August 2016, becoming new boss David Moyes’ first signing at the club.

The North East outfit had miraculously survived relegation under Sam Allardyce the season before, but this time around they weren’t so lucky.

The Black Cats won just five league games all season, bringing their 10-year stay in the top flight to a resounding halt. Moyes resigned at the end of the season, and the relegation proved to be the catalyst for the downward spiral that the club endured over the following years.

Djilobodji had signed a four-year deal over the summer, but played just 18 league games that season. Those 18 appearances proved to be the only league outings of his entire stint at the Stadium of Light.

Believed to be commanding a weekly wage of around £32,000 at the time, Djilobodji then spent the following season on loan at Dijon in the French Ligue 1.

With the defender pushing for a permanent exit, Sunderland allowed him to spend the entirety of July on unpaid leave, providing that when August came around, he either found himself a new club, or reported back to Sunderland ready for the new season.

However, Djilobodji didn’t report back to the North East until the first week of September, and then failed a fitness test, prompting Sunderland to cancel his contract.

Then-chairman, Stewart Donald, threatened to take legal action against Djilobodji and Didier Ndong for “deliberately devaluing themselves.”

It proved to be one of the biggest wastes of money in Sunderland’s history.

Djilobodji’s career went downhill after he joined Chelsea

After a promising spell at French side Nantes, Djilobodji joined Chelsea ahead of the 2015/16 season.

However, he failed to make a single league appearance for the Blues, having spent half of the season on loan at Werder Bremen. He was then sold to Sunderland at the end of the campaign.

After his disastrous spell with the Black Cats, he found himself back in Ligue 1, this time with Guingamp. He then managed just four league appearances all season for them, before moving on to Turkey.

He spent five years with Gaziantep in the Turkish Super Lig, and now plays in the second division for Fatih Karagumruk.

Sunderland will at least be able to take some solace from the fact that they were far from the only club who failed to get the best out of Djilobodji over the course of his career.

His move to England should have been a stepping stone for him to progress and become a top-level defender, instead it proved to be the start of his career fading out.

From Sunderland’s point of view, they will surely look back on the deal to bring him to the club and wonder what they were thinking. They doubled the £4million fee that Chelsea had paid previously, only to ultimately find themselves with a player who didn’t want to be there.

It proved to be a very costly misjudgement for the Black Cats.