Throwback Thursday: The rise and fall of 'Bargain of the Century' Michu

On this day 11 years ago, Swansea City signed Michu from Rayo Vallecano, in a deal worth £2m. What came next was one of the most impactful and unexpected single campaigns from a Premier League player we have seen, as the Spaniard became arguably one of the football bargains of the century. 

In this week's Throwback Thursday, we’re going to take you back to 2012 and look at what put Michu on Swansea’s radar, his first season in the Premier League and the subsequent demise after that remarkable campaign. 

The rise of Michu 

Almost a year to the day that he would move to Swansea City, Michu joined Rayo Vallecano on a two-year contract. Rayo had just been promoted to La Liga, and Michu’s club the prior season, Celta Vigo, had failed to gain promotion through the playoffs. 

In Michu’s first season at Rayo, in a side that featured Joel Robles and Diego Costa, they finished 16th in La Liga, moving out of the dropzone with a late winner against relegation rivals Granada at Villarreal’s expense. 

At the end of the season, Rayo were joint-6th top scorers in the league, with Michu netting 15 times, level with Arouna Kone. Defence was the issue having conceded the most goals in La Liga (73) at a rate of 1.92 goals conceded a game. 

Michu played 37 of the 38 league games and was a key factor in their survival. Whil his 15 goal tally was dwarfed by the gargantuan 50 put up by Lionel Messi and 46 by Cristiano Ronaldo, Michu was a relative unknown to fans outside of Spain in 2012. 

Despite this, Swansea City, who had just survived their first ever season in the Premier League, registered their interest. 

The Swans, managed Brendan Rodgers, made an instant impact in the Premier League. They averaged 56.2% possession, only second to Manchester City and Arsenal throughout the 2012/13 season, and had the second highest pass success rate of 85.1%. 

The likes of Danny Graham, Ashley Williams, Scott Sinclair and Gylfi Sigurdsson helped Swansea to a 12th-placed finish their first season in the Premier League. 

The stellar 2012/13 season  

With Brendan Rodgers leaving to take over at Liverpool, there were more questions than answers for Swansea City following their fantastic campaign in the top flight. Michael Laudrup took charge for 2012/13, and the Swans signed the likes of Pablo Hernandez, Ki Sung-yueng, Chico Flores and Jonathan de Guzman.  

Michu joined on July 20th in a summer transfer window that saw Eden Hazard join European champions Chelsea, Robin Van Persie moving from Arsenal to Manchester United and Emmanuel Adebayor, Hugo Lloris and Mousa Dembele move from Manchester City, Lyon and Fulham, respectively, to join Tottenham. 

With so much activity, Michu’s transfer went under the radar, but little did anyone know how effective he was going to be for the Swans in 2012/13. 

He featured from the outset against QPR, scoring a brace and picking up an assist in a 5-0 win, which immediately caught the eye of fans. After the opening three games of the season, Michu had scored four goals from eight shots, and had quickly established. 

That league season, Michu scored 18 goals from 35 games; only Christian Benteke (19), Gareth Bale (21), Luis Suarez (23) and Robin Van Persie (26) scored more league goals than Swansea’s number nine. 

Only defenders Chico Flores (7.47) and Angel Rangel (7.18) returned a higher average WhoScored rating than Michu (7.17). He helped Swansea to their first ever major trophy in their 100th year as a club as they smashes Bradford City 5-0 in the League Cup. 

It was a tremendous season for Michu, whose market value had peaked towards the end of the 2012/13 season, and any departure would instantly net the Swans a tasty profit should they have elected to sell. 

The fall of Michu 

However, the good times came to an abrupt end in the following campaign. After a fantastic season, many expected Michu to reach new heights and continue to take the Premier League by storm. 

However, shortly after the season ended, Swansea added Wilfred Bony to their attack. For Swansea, Bony turned out to be a great addition as he scored 16 goals in his debut campaign. 

Michu, however, netted just twice in the 2013/14 season, picking up an additional two assists in the process, as he averaged a WhoScored rating of 6.84, a drop off from the 7.17 of the previous season. 

He only started 15 times for the Swans in his second campaign as a result of injury and Bony’s superb goalscoring form. Having lost his place in the team, he went to Napoli on loan, but only featured in a handful of games for the Serie A side, and was released by Swansea in November 2015 with his contract due to expire in 2016. 

He joined UP Langreo and then returned to his club Real Oviedo in the summer of 2016 on a one year deal. 

The following summer, he had still been unable to shake off any ankle injury issues, and subsequently retired from football in July 2017, aged just 31. 

His fast demise into obscurity after that quite incredible peak back in 2012/13 has earned him the unlucky title of a “one season wonder”, but he quite possibly became the hottest breakout star who had been signed for such a low fee, also naming him the as one of the best “bargains of all time”.  

Signing a 15+ goal striker nowadays would cost considerably more than the minute £2m Swansea paid for him, so Michu is undoubtedly one of the signings of that 2012/13 season, given the impact he had in helping Swansea to a top half finish and their first ever major trophy.