AFTER Michu leaves Swansea, we look at other Premier League one-season wonders who went from hero to zero.
The Spaniard took the Premier League by storm when he moved to the Swans in 2012 from Rayo Vallecano for £2m, bagging 22 goals in his first season.
The 29-year-old was capped by Spain and helped Swansea qualify for Europe by winning the Capital One Cup, but his second season was disrupted by injury and he scored only six times in 25 games.
Swansea parted company with the striker by mutual consent on Monday and he is now free to find a new club in order to kick-start his playing career in January.
Here are five other Premier League players who set the top flight alight before fading away ...
AMR ZAKI
A prolific spell at Egyptian side Zamalek prompted Wigan to stump up £1.5 million to bring Zaki on loan for the 2008/09 season.
It was a transfer that barely made a ripple, but Zaki burst onto the scene, scoring on his first competitive start against West Ham. By the end of September, he had bagged five goals and his bruising style of forward play had scouts at some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs watching with interest.
After scoring two goals against Liverpool in a 3-2 win for the hosts at Anfield, Reds boss Rafa Benitez confirmed his admiration for the player: “Everybody will be checking his situation now,” Benitez said.
However, despite being the Premier League’s top goalscorer at that stage with seven in eight matches, the goals had dried up come the end of the campaign, with Zaki adding just another three.
His time with Wigan ended in controversy, too, as manager Steve Bruce revealed that the player returned late from international duty four times during that season.
Bruce said: “I can honestly say that in all my time in football, I have never worked with someone as unprofessional.”
Wigan decided not to turn his loan deal into a permanent one and he was subsequently signed on loan by Hull City the following season but failed to score in six appearances.
ROQUE SANTA CRUZ
Regarded as a top-class striker for his exploits with Paraguay and Bayern Munich, Santa Cruz lived up to his billing in his first season with Blackburn Rovers, bagging 20 goals in 40 appearances.
You would have excused Blackburn fans for thinking they had a genuine superstar on their hands but the goals soon dried up.
He notched only nine goals in 27 appearances in the following campaign before, amazingly, Manchester City decided to fork out £17.5m for his services on a four-year deal.
Those four years were unspectacular to say the least. He made just 20 appearances, scoring four goals whilst spending time on loan back at Blackburn, and also Malaga and Real Betis.
MICKEY EVANS
With eight matches remaining in the 1996/97 season, Southampton were bottom of the Premier League and four points adrift. Then Mickey Evans happened.
Evans, whom Graeme Souness signed from Plymouth Argyle to add muscle to his strike force, went on the rampage against Premier League defenders in April.
The forward became a cult hero at Saints for scoring four crucial goals in their battle against the drop, including two strikes in one game away at Nottingham Forest. Buoyed by Evans’ goals, the south coast club took 15 points from their last eight matches and stayed up by one point.
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His form was so impressive in keeping Saints up, he won the Premiership Player of the Month award for April.
But that period was as good as it got for Evans; he failed to score another goal for Southampton and his time at the club was over once Souness was replaced by Dave Jones. Via West Brom and then Bristol Rovers, Evans returned to Plymouth and won both the old Third and Second Division titles during his second spell with the Pilgrims.
MICHAEL JOHNSON
At 19 years old, the Manchester City midfielder was heralded as “England’s next big star” by Sven-Goran Eriksson after becoming a driving force in the City midfield during the 2007/08 season.
He made 23 league appearances that campaign and was reportedly the subject of a £12m bid from Liverpool in the summer of 2008. However, a succession of injuries derailed his progress and in 2012, Johnson had his contract cancelled by City after playing just one minute of Premier League football for the club between 2008 and 2012.
Johnson continued to struggled with fitness and mental health issues, and sadly retired at the age of 24, telling the Daily Telegraph: “I wasn’t dealing with things very well, I was getting into bad habits, but by then I had finished with City for a number of months, it just hadn’t been made public.
“If things had gone differently for me, I do believe that I could have been part of this current City team, but the way you have to look at it is not to have regrets.”
COLLINS JOHN
Not many players have made a bigger instant impact than the former Fulham striker did in the 2005/06 season.
After joining from FC Twente for £600,000, the 19-year-old scored 11 goals that season despite starting just 15 games and ended the campaign as Fulham’s top goalscorer as they finished comfortably in mid-table. Only two Fulham players have since surpassed his haul of 11 Premier League goals in one season: Clint Dempsey and Dimitar Berbatov.
John started six of the first seven games of the 2006/07 season but his form nosedived when Chris Coleman was replaced as manager by Lawrie Sanchez, and he spent the remaining two years of his Fulham contract out on loan at Leicester, Watford and NEC, scoring just two goals in total.
After a spell in the MLS with Chicago Fire, where he was described as “damaged goods”, John was most recently seen on these shores playing for Barnet when Edgar Davids was manager. An unfit-looking John made his debut against Plymouth in 2012 but lasted just 15 minutes as he was substituted with a thigh injury.
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