Ramos, Varane → Sanchez, Morata... Check out AF's October Flops of the Month!

Welcome to All Football’s first ever Flops of the Month. Here, we pick a 18-man squad in which the players fail to deliver in October. What’s your thoughts on these flops? Will they return to their best forms as soon as possible? And you can have your say on who the captain of the Flops Squad should be!

GK: Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur)

Lloris proves in October that he is not a world class goalkeeper. The Spurs captain was found guilty of drink driving and received 20-month driving ban.

Perhaps fortunately keeping his place in the team, he produced two of the most calamitous performances in Champions League which all but eliminated themselves from advancing to the knockout stages.

First, when facing Barcelona, the France international carelessly came out of his goal and allowed Philippe Coutinho to score the opener. To make things worse, he received a red card after a late tackle on PSV’s Hirving Lozano - and 10-man Spurs conceded a late goal afterwards, processing just one points in the opening three matches.

DF: Eric Bailly (Manchester United)

In 2016, Bailly was Jose Mourinho’s first signing at Manchester United and the £30m young star was tipped to be the future of the team.

However, He made just 43 Premier League appearances up until now, and the last one was a humiliation - being substituted off by Mourinho at just 19 minutes when the team were 2-0 down against Newcastle.

And by the way, they came back to win it 3-2... without Bailly of course.

DF: Raphael Varane (Real Madrid)

Real Madrid are Champions League winners for the past three seasons , and Varane is 2018 World Cup winner with France.

Historical statistics matter little when your team are NINTH in La Liga table, seven points behind leaders and rivals Barcelona.

Varane was especially at fault in the 2-1 loss to minnows Levante, failing to make a clearance thus gifting opposition a one-on-one opportunity, before giving away a penalty when he handled the ball in the box.

DF: Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)

Ramos is always a controversial individual, but recently he has just been biting off more than he can chew.

Real Madrid have lost four of their five games in October, including a 5-1 thrashing by Barcelona in Clasico - Ramos was not his usual self that day, failing to live up to his ‘warrior’ reputation.

And in an off-the-pitch incident, Ramos kicked the ball twice at young teammate Sergio Reguilon after being accidentally hit in the nose in training. He later apologized, but citing that as ‘quite common situations’.

DF: Jerome Boateng (Bayern Munich)

Bayern Munich experienced a four-game winless run starting from late September and Boateng was made a scapegoat.

Boateng was a summer transfer target for Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain, but the 30-year-old decided to stay at the Bundesliga giants.

He occasionally lost his starting position to Niklas Sule, and when he plays he tends to commit mistakes, giving away a penalty in the 2-0 loss to Hertha BSC is a worrying example.

Bayern have recovered though, winning the last three matches in a row.

MF: Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace)

When someone says ‘I feel like before anyone gets a red, I'd have to get my leg broken or something’, you would expect him to be carrying his team like Eden Hazard or Lionel Messi.

But it was Crystal Palace’s Zaha who made the claim, and he and his team certainly did not back it up, winning none of the four games played in October.

It’s true that the Ivory Coast international was involved in two of the three goals they scored this month, but it was a very quiet - and disappointing - period for someone of his levels.

MF: Tiemoue Bakayoko (AC Milan)

Bakayoko is a myth. Chelsea signed him from Monaco for £40m to boss the midfield but he flopped it completely.

Never mind, go to AC Milan and prove yourself again. And then this happens:

Milan manager Gennaro Gattuso said: “Bakayoko needs to be helped, as he is struggling. He has been here for two months and we haven’t yet been able to get him to understand the movements.”

Bakayoko, who played 141 minutes of 540 possible for Milan in October, assured fans that ‘with time you’ll see the Bakayoko you talk about’. We’ll see.

MF: Nacer Chadli (Monaco)

To be painfully honest, Chadli has been a flop for quite some years now, let alone in October. Overall his five-year adventure in the Premier League with Tottenham and West Brom can be considered a failure.

He played a mere five times for the eventually-relegated West Brom, but was still included in Belgium’s World Cup squad.

Surprisingly enough, he was a main man for Roberto Martinez’s side and even scored a injury-time winner against Japan to send them through to the quarter-finals.

Now back to reality, Chadli is struggling with Monaco, who sit 19th in Ligue 1 table, and he provides no goal and no assist so far.

FW: Alvaro Morata (Chelsea)

We know you’ve worked hard, but we need to see you score.

Morata was a £60m signing for Chelsea more than a year ago and since then he has managed to bang in 19 goals only.

To be fair, three of them were scored in October, but you can forgive Chelsea fans for remembering more of his missed chances than the ones he actually converted.

FW: Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United)

In the summer of 2017, Morata and Lukaku were much sought after by all big clubs around the world, and now both of them just flattered to deceive.

Lukaku has four goals to his name this season but the last one was on September 15th, which means he has now gone more than 450 minutes without scoring.

Several United’s former players could not resist the temptation of criticizing the misfiring forward, Paul Scholes even went on to say that he is ‘not sure you are ever going to win the league with a goal scorer like him’.

FW: Alexis Sanchez (Manchester United)

Despite currently not being fit enough to play a match, he is the fittest player to make the All Football October Flops of the Month squad.

Sanchez was at Arsenal for four years and regardless of how the ending panned out, his performance level was always high for Arsene Wenger.

And now he couldn’t even get into Jose Mourinho’s matchday squad, with the reason being ‘not fit enough to play’.

Some are saying that Sanchez’s highlights at United are still that piano announcement video.

ON THE BENCH:

Michael Rensing (Fortuna Düsseldorf)

Rensing was tipped to be the next big thing at Bayern Munich after Oliver Kahn’s retirement in 2008, but he failed to live up to the expectation.

He had to start from scratch, joining FC Köln and Bayer Leverkusen before lowering himself to the second devision with Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2013.

They’re now promoted to Bundesliga, but Rensing has already conceded 21 times in nine games, including a 7-1 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt in which Luka Jovic scored five goals.

Mats Hummels (Bayern Munich)

Bayern Munich fail to keep a clean sheet in October’s three Bundesliga fixtures and Hummels has been inconsistent during the period.

Hummels has endured some injury-plagued period in recent years and does not look like the world class defender we talked about any more.

Benjamin Pavard (VfB Stuttgart)

Pavard was a World Cup winner with France in Russia, but now his team Stuttgart sits BOTTOM in the Bundesliga table, having won just one game in nine.

He has his chance to leave Stuttgart this summer, but he opted to stay and play the centre-back role for most games this season.

Dani Ceballos (Real Madrid)

The fact that below-par Ceballos keeps playing for Real Madrid says a lot about Julen Lopetegui.

With Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Casemiro, Marco Asensio and Isco in midfield, Ceballos has to really play well to convince people that he deserves a spot - but he fails on every occasion.

Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona)

Dembele is the joint-fourth most expensive player in football history when he joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund for €145m.

However, his development has stalled after the move and he constantly struggles for game time. 

After Messi’s arm injury against Sevilla, Dembele was thought to be the man to replace Messi but Ernesto Valverde decided against the temptation, therefore the 21-year-old Frenchman found himself with only 86 minutes of action in October.

Diego Costa (Atletico Madrid)

Costa prides himself on his killer instinct as a striker, but now finds himself still without scoring in La Liga this season.

He sat out two league games in October due to a hamstring injury, but should he not recover his goalscoring form as soon as possible, he may lose his position to Nikola Kalinic and even teenager Borja Garces.

Mario Balotelli (Nice)

He just couldn’t behave.

Balotelli missed pre-season after seeing his Marseille move fell through. When he returned to Nice, new manager Patrice Vieira dropped him out of some matchday squads due to fitness issues.

He played two out of three games for Nice in October though, but rather than scoring, he was booked on both occasions.

MANAGER: Julen Lopetegui (Real Madrid - sacked)

Don’t worry Julen, we don’t sack people here.