Stoke City hitman Mame Biram Diouf cost his new employers less than £200,000 a goal, the Premier League's best


Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli cost his club over £20million for a solitary Barclays Premier League goal this season - the worst value per goal of any striker purchased by an English top-flight side this year.

With an estimated salary of almost £5m added to his £16m transfer fee from AC Milan, Balotelli topped Sportsmail's 'price per goal' table which also features the likes of Manchester City's Wilfried Bony and Radamel Falcao of Manchester United among its big names, and 12 signings failed to score at all.

Stoke City's free transfer of Mame Biram Diouf provided the best value in the Premier League, with his 11 goals weighing in at a price of under £200,000 each.

Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli provided the worst value for money of any striker purchased by Premier League clubs this season

Manchester City striker Wilfried Bony elected not to celebrate when scoring against his former club Swansea, but he has struggled too

Stoke City forward Mame Biram Diouf's 11 goals for his new club this season cost the Potters less than £200,000 per league strike

Sportsmail's table shows how much each striker signing from this season cost their new clubs per goal - based on their fees and wages

Clubs from the top division splashed out over £260m on goalscoring talent across the last two transfer windows and while the likes of Ayoze Perez and Bafetimbi Gomis have proved bargains for Newcastle United and Swansea City respectively there have been some expensive mistakes, too.

Emmanuel Riviere, like Balotelli, managed just one goal after arriving for a £6m fee from Monaco and his price per goal ranks third behind the Liverpool man and Bony.

The figures are calculated based upon each player's number of league goals, their transfer and the estimated costs of their wages - calculated for 12 months for those who have spent an entire season in the Premier League and six months for those with a shorter stay.

Loan fees are not listed within the calculations due to the lack of information surrounding many of those deals - though the £6m bill that Monaco recieved for Falcao could even have pushed him into the top five of our list.

Queens Park Rangers striker Eduardo Vargas is perhaps the surprise name that offers the best value of any of the season's loanee additions.

Balotelli's only league goal of the season came in an Anfield win over Tottenham in February and while the two points his winner provided helped Liverpool to qualify for the Europa League, it's not exactly something they would have wanted a £20,695,975 outlay for.

This table shows the players signed this season who failed to notch a single league goal for their new Premier League clubs this year

Radamel Falcao's loan spell at Manchester United from Monaco seems to have been an expensive mistake after he scored just four goals

Emmanuel Riviere also arrived in the Premier League from Monaco but his time in front of the net has been frustrating with just one goal

Balotelli netted his only league goal of the season in a 3-2 win over Tottenham Hotspur in February, and the price on it was over £20m

Riviere ended his own goal drought against QPR this month but even worse for his owners, that came in a 2-1 defeat.

Twelve signings failed to score at all: Burnley pair Lukas Jutkiewicz and Marvin Sordell, Crystal Palace's Shola Ameobi, Kevin Doyle, Yaya Sanogo and Andy Johnson, Marvin Emnes at Swansea City, Tom Lawrence and Nick Powell of Leicester City, Newcastle loanee Facundo Ferreyra, Mauro Zarate in his time at QPR and Georgios Samaras at West Bromwich Albion.

Diego Costa (£1,991,331 per goal) and Alexis Sanchez (£2,644,053 per goal) arrived as the big-money signings of the summer at Chelsea and Arsenal respectively, and both managed to provide their employers with pretty good value.

Aside from those two, Southampton star Graziano Pelle was the highest scoring striking arrival and each of his 12 goals cost £884,073.

Loic Remy and Didier Drogba were Chelsea's other two arrivals upfront and Jose Mourinho's transfer business appears to have bgeen vindicated with Remy the most expensive per goal of the trio - also including Costa - at £2,096,314.

Diego Costa hit 20 goals in his debut season in England to help Chelsea to the title - and his showings appear to be of good value

Alexis Sanchez has become a firm favourite at Arsenal and although his cost per goal is higher than Costa's, he too scores well