England have had a few other the last few years.
Moses Ashikodi
Cerno Samba
Leon Knight
They all had similar hype to Carlton Cole and even Bobby Zamora, only Zamora and Cole have made good careers for themselves, and are now both good strikers.
There's been a fair few in England who started brightly and then dropped into the lower leagues. Guys like McPhail, Jon Harley,
Abroad....
Freddy Adu has to be the most obvious.
Hugo Viana - Was supposed to be quality, but never did it at a top level.
Silvio Maric - Went to Newcastle, was supposed to be great, but never was.
Javier Portillo - Broke all Real Madrid scoring records at junior level and with the reserves (i think).
Nii Lamptey - Ghanaian, meant to be the next best thing. Never amounted to anything.
I vaguely remember reading about a player who ended up playing all over Europe, think he had a stint at Roma. It'll probably have been sometime in the 90's. Think he ended up in Greece. Can't remember his name but he was the original Freddy Adu, in terms of being all hype. Anybody remember him?