Some players make their Premier League debut only to disappear just as quickly. Ali Dia might be the most memorable, but we’ve looked at some other examples of those who played one and were done.
This is an updated version of an article that was originally published in November 2024.
Sunday 23 November will mark 29 years since one of the most talked-about debuts in Premier League history.
Standing on the sideline in his number 33 shirt, Ali Dia was about to enter the pitch as a first-half substitute to replace injured Southampton forward Matt Le Tissier. Not many substitutions in Premier League history will have seen a wider gap in footballing talent between the two players exchanging places on the pitch.
Dia would never play another game in the Premier League. He couldn’t even finish the one he appeared in, suffering the ignominy of being a subbed substitute in his single game against Leeds United.
Many of you will know the backstory already. Saints manager Graeme Souness was duped by the man who claimed he was a cousin of reigning FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon d’Or holder, George Weah. After his brief and hapless outing, the Senegalese forward was sent packing, never to be seen in English professional football again. One Premier League appearance and out.
He might have been one of the worst, but he’s by no means the only player to feature just once in the competition.
Overall, at the time of writing, 5,068 players have made at least one Premier League appearance. Of those, 380 (7.5%) have featured in just one game in the competition. Some of those will go on to play again in future, but the majority won’t. Their single appearance gives them the right to say that they were a Premier League footballer once upon a time.
The ‘played once’ crew are the extras of the Premier League world. While they have a part in the competition’s history, few of them have played a significant one. They are the extras blending into the background of a bar scene so to speak.
But the odd one makes themselves memorable. Often for the wrong reasons, of course. If your Premier League debut was so positive, you’d surely be given another game, right?
Look, playing just one game in the Premier League doesn’t necessarily make you a bad footballer.
Yildiray Bastürk made his Premier League debut for Blackburn Rovers, starting in a 1-1 draw at Molineux versus Wolves but came off at half-time and was never seen in the competition again.
Beforehand, he’d played 249 times in the German Bundesliga, featured in the 2002 UEFA Champions League final for Bayer Leverkusen and was part of the Turkey side that finished third at the 2002 World Cup.
Similarly, Richard Witschge won La Liga with Barcelona twice, as well as the 1992 European Cup before a 1998 Eredivisie title win with Ajax. He only played once in the Premier League, back in April 1995 for Blackburn against West Ham.
Ferdinand Coly won’t be fondly remembered by Birmingham City fans for his one-game spell back in 2003 while on loan from Ligue 1 side Lens, but he was a key part of Senegal’s excellent 2002 side that shocked France at the World Cup and finished as runners-up in the Africa Cup of Nations.
Even Cafú… oh wait, that’s a different one.
Goalkeeper Matt Murray was cruelly robbed of a longer football career due to injury, and his only Premier League appearance was also a grim affair. Wolves’ opening game of the 2003-04 season saw them lose 5-1 at Blackburn, making Murray the only goalkeeper to have played just once in the Premier League and be on the end of such a thrashing. It makes you wonder how bad it might have been had he not managed to also tally seven saves in his sole Premier League appearance.
Another memorable Premier League debut for the wrong reasons was that of Christian Negouai. After coming on as an 81st-minute substitute for Manchester City against Everton on Boxing Day 2004, he earned a straight red card after a shocking tackle just minutes later. That was to be his entire Premier League experience, as he never played in the competition again. To this day, he’s the only player to have been sent off in his only Premier League appearance.
Four players have played just one Premier League game but made it a scoring debut to remember, and it’s unlikely they’ll ever be seen in the Premier League again.
Gary Bull is now 59 years old, so it’s safe to say he won’t leave the ‘played once’ club. On his only Premier League appearance he scored the winning goal in a 1-0 victory for Nottingham Forest against Crystal Palace on 2 January 1995.
Aidan Newhouse scored for Wimbledon in their 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa on 3 October 1992 after coming on as a 23rd-minute substitute. He never got the chance to add to his tally, and with Newhouse now 53 years old, it won’t happen in the future, either.
Chris David is still playing football in the Turkish lower leagues, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever add to his one-appearance-one-goal record in the Premier League despite still being 32 years old. His late equaliser for Fulham in their 2-2 final-day draw with Crystal Palace in May 2014 saw him score on his only appearance in the competition. He’s also got a strong claim to the greatest goal by any ‘played once’ player – his strike a brilliant 25-yard shot that flew in off the crossbar.
The only other player to have appeared just once in the Premier League and scored in that match is Josh Harrop. He was one of four players given their first top-flight start by Manchester United manager José Mourinho on the final day of the 2016-17 season for a game against Crystal Palace, as Mourinho named what was, at the time, the Red Devils’ youngest starting XI in Premier League history (22 years and 284 days).
Demetri Mitchell and goalkeeper Joel Pereira were two of the other three debutants for United in that match – and neither of those have played again in the Premier League either.
The fourth, Scott McTominay, has done alright, we’d say. Angel Gomes also made his Premier League debut as a 16-year-old substitute but went on to play four more times in the competition.
One player who had a golden chance to join this list was Lucas Piazón.
Almost 12 years have passed since the Brazilian’s only Premier League appearance. A late substitute for Chelsea in their 8-0 destruction of Paul Lambert’s Aston Villa, Piazón assisted Eden Hazard for Chelsea’s seventh and then, after being fouled, was given the chance to score on his debut from the penalty spot, only to see his effort saved by Brad Guzan.
Across the ‘played once’ list, the club these players have represented most often is Manchester City. Twenty-two different players to make one appearance in the competition have done so for City, although the last two of those, Vitor Reis and Claudio Echeverri, will be expected to appear again in the future by most supporters. They are followed in the ranking by West Ham United (18 players), Chelsea (18), Arsenal (17) and Man Utd (17).
City also gave one player his only Premier League appearance in a moment that arguably marks the point that Manchester City moved from Old City (think: David James up front) to New City (think: Sergio Agüero up front).
Gláuber had appeared for Brazil in a friendly against Guatemala in 2005, so was technically an international footballer. Signed by City in late August 2008, the day before the club bought Robinho, Gláuber had to wait until the final day of the season for his one Premier League game. It was a 1-0 win over Bolton, in which he was raucously cheered by fans who may have realised the club’s ‘banter era’ was fading before their very eyes.
Gláuber may not have featured for City again, but he completed all five of his passes in the five minutes he was given. How many people can say that they have a 100% pass completion rate for Manchester City in the Premier League?
It won’t come as much of a shock to learn that Arsène Wenger has given the most players their only Premier League appearance (14), with the Frenchman taking charge of a record 828 matches in the competition. The last time he did this in a Premier League game was in January 2012 versus Man Utd, when both Park Chu-Young and Li Ke (formerly known as Nico Yannaris) were given their only appearance in the competition, coming on as substitutes in a 2-1 home defeat.
Graham Rix (37 years, 203) is the oldest player to play just one Premier League game (for Chelsea vs Arsenal in May 1995), while Neil Finn is the youngest of the ‘played once’ selection, and he also remains the youngest goalkeeper to play a Premier League match. At 17 years and three days old, Finn played for West Ham against Man City on New Year’s Day 1996 but never made another appearance in the competition.
Of course, most Premier League debuts for youngsters are handed out in the final month of the season when there is little or maybe even nothing to play for. Of the 380 players to have made just one Premier League appearance, 93 have done so in the month of May (24.5%) – more than double any other month (January – 41). Sixty-seven of those appearances have come in a club’s final game of the season.
More players will come and go, some of those will only play once in the Premier League. But that is still one more than most of us.
The Premier League One-Appearance Collective
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Played One and Done: The Premier League One-Appearance Collective Opta Analyst.
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