Top five worst Brazilians in Premier League history

There are very few nations that could argue they have consistently produced better footballers than Brazil.

Nobody can boast a better World Cup record than the Yellows, who have won five tournaments and claimed the same number of Copa America titles.

A contingent of their footballers have played in the Premier League in recent years and some have made a success of it, as highlighted here. However, for every Rafael da Silva, there is a dud.

Below, Sports Mole has selected five Brazilians that struggled to live up to their country's reputation while on English shores.

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Back in 2003, Man United supporters were salivating at the prospect of Ronaldinho pulling on a red shirt. He had shone during the World Cup in the previous year and was now ready to leave Paris Saint-Germain.

The Red Devils were among the favourites to capture his signature and even signed his compatriot Kleberson to help him settle in or give him lifts to training - something like that!

However, while they secured the services of the taxi driver, they missed out on the star passenger, who joined Barcelona.

Having cost around £6.5m from Atletico Paranaense, United gave Kleberson a chance but after 20 Premier League appearances Sir Alex Ferguson had seen enough and the Brazilian was shipped out to Besiktas in Turkey.

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As our other article shows, Boro got it very right with Juninho. Any supporters that had been hoping that £12m Alves would have a similar impact on the team were left very disappointed though.

He had scored goals for fun in Holland, but then so had Mateja Kezman. Even a brace against Manchester United and a hat-trick against Manchester City on the final day of the 2007-08 season failed to spark a goalscoring spree.

When he left in the summer of 2009, he had scored just 10 Premier League goals - that is more than £1m per goal.

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How can someone that played just seven times during a loan spell be on this list? He can't have been that bad, can he? Wrong!

Junior was one of the two centre-backs as Brazil won the 2002 World Cup and had arrived at Elland Road from AC Milan. With pedigree like that, Leeds fans had every right to be excited.

What followed during those seven outings was nothing short of painful. The Whites shipped 25 goals and he was also red-carded on his debut against Birmingham City. The defender did score twice, but that was in a 3-2 League Cup loss to Manchester United.

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If you're going to part with £18m to sign a striker, the least you would expect is a respectable return of goals for your investment. After all, Jo had scored 44 in 77 games for CSKA Moscow.

Put him in a Man City shirt and he couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo. Things got so bad that after one season he was loaned out to Everton in 2009. A breach of conduct saw that come to an end though and City were lumbered once again.

When they eventually sold him to Internacional in 2011, the frontman had scored just six goals for the Citizens.

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If you are a professional footballer who is getting paid silly money to run around the pitch for 90 minutes, the least you could be is in good physical shape.

Quite what the Arsenal medical staff made of Santos's condition when he arrived from Fenerbahce in 2011 is unknown, but the club still signed him anyway. His fitness didn't seem to improve for 18 months and in all honesty it looked as though he should have been contesting a scrum rather than a football match.

Earlier this year he was loaned out to Gremio in his homeland, but they have sent him back! Potential suitors form an orderly queue.