With Man Utd mindful of overpaying for strikers and Mason Mount, we look at the biggest Premier League transfer overpays in history.
This is not about judging the players’ performances, but how much their transfer fee outweighed their value at the time, as decreed by transfermarkt. Their valuations are clearly on the low side but you still get a decent idea of the players who went for massive fees for reasons beyond their qualifications.
10) Ruben Dias (Benfica to Manchester City, 2020)
Fee: £65m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £30m
Clearly there was a massive undervaluing of Dias, likely based on him being in a league outside of the big five. Three Premier League titles later, it turns out that he was more than worth the money, but Benfica undoubtedly added a few million when they saw City torn apart by Leicester City just a few days before the transfer. “This is the guy to replace Vincent Kompany, if you like. £65m, a huge figure again, but if this doesn’t work, I think it’s possibly the end of the Pep project.” said Jamie Carragher at the time. SPOILER: It was not the end of the Pep project.
9) Harry Maguire (Leicester City to Manchester United, 2019)
Fee: £80m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £43m
It looked stupid money at the time and it looks really stupid money four years later, with Maguire coincidentally available for about the price that United should have paid.
READ: The most expensive defenders ever, topped by Mr Maguire
8) Marc Cucurella (Brighton to Chelsea, 2022)
Fee: £55m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £24m
Brighton can pretty much name their price when it comes to player sales (unless it’s Alexis Mac Allister and he has just won the World Cup and had a clause inserted into his contract) and they absolutely saw Chelsea coming when it came to the Spanish one-cap man. He has looked entirely out of his depth at Chelsea whether playing at left-back, left wing-back or left-sided centre-back. Like with the overpriced man above, Manchester City rather cleverly helped drive up the price before dropping out of the race.
7) Alexander Isak (Real Socieded to Newcastle United, 2022)
Fee: £60m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £25.78m
It’s fair to say that was a grand old whack of money after a six-goal La Liga season but it was still quite a bit short of the buy-out clause in the Swede’s deal so Newcastle could kid themselves they got a bargain. Ten Premier League goals in his first Newcastle season looks better with the caveat of an extended spell on the sidelines but there’s still little to suggest he was worth that club-record fee.
6) Aymeric Laporte (Athletic Bilbao to Manchester City, 2018)
Fee: £57m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £21.4m
The price – a club-record deal – was determined by a buy-out clause and Manchester City obviously decided that they needed to make that investment (after backing out of the Virgil van Dijk race) at a time when Nicolas Otamendi was seen as their only really reliable centre-half. Laporte was likely undervalued because he was uncapped. After starting only 11 Premier League games last season, the Frenchman turned Spain international is now very much up for sale.
5) Wesley Fofana (Leicester City to Chelsea, 2022)
Fee: £70m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £34.3m
It took three rejected Chelsea bids – worth £50m, £60m and finally £70m with add-ons included – before Leicester finally caved and accepted up to £75m for a defender with 57 top-flight career league appearances. You will gather by now that a) transfermarkt undervalue defenders but also that b) Leicester City used to own all of the cards.
4) Jack Grealish (Aston Villa to Manchester City, 2021)
Fee: £100m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £55.86m
The price was the price was the price – set in Jack Grealish’s Aston Villa contract. Was it too much at the time for what Grealish had actually achieved? Probably yes. Does it still look too much with a Treble in the bag? It’s borderline. There’s no doubt that he struggled under the weight of being British football’s most expensive footballer and was probably glad to hand on that particular baton to the man at the top/bottom of this list.
3) Virgil van Dijk (Southampton to Liverpool, 2018)
Fee: £75m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £25.8m
While clearly that was a ludicrous valuation, Liverpool paid a January tax on Van Dijk because they had overstepped the mark in the summer when they had pursued him in a £60m deal. Obviously the word-record (for a defender) fee has been more than justified since, but it was still an eyewatering sum of money for a player yet to play at an elite level. And it opened the door for Leicester to name their price for their own centre-halves.
2) Antony (Ajax to Manchester United, 2022)
Fee: £81m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £30m
Ajax declared him untransferable early in the summer window and thought a £68m price tag would put off Manchester United and their former boss Erik ten Hag. So what did Manchester United do? They started the season disastrously and panicked into paying £80m-plus for the tricky winger. And it’s that kind of deal that will see United stung for a striker this summer.
1) Enzo Fernandez (Benfica to Chelsea, 2023)
Fee: £106.8m
Transfermarkt valuation at the time: £47.2m
A combination of January, Chelsea being giddy, a World Cup medal/Golden Boy trophy and a ridiculous buy-out clause for a player bought just £12m a few months before made this not only a British transfer record but the biggest Premier League overpay of all time. He has looked okay in a Chelsea shirt but not yet £106.8m okay; is that even possible?
In case you’re interested, Neymar and Ousmane Dembele are the only players across Europe whose ‘value’ was blown out of the water by their transfer fee to a an even greater extent.
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