Liverpool signing among 10 biggest Premier League overpays of 2026

Spurs are responsible for three of the 10 biggest Premier League overpays this summer, with Liverpool in there too.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to ‘overpay’ for a player – last summer produced a mixed list – but it is an interesting snapshot of a buying club’s desperation, a selling club’s strong negotiating position, a player’s contract length and a number of other factors, including whether Roberto De Zerbi’s needs have been satisfied.

These are the biggest overpays of the Premier League summer, according to our lovely friends at Transfermarkt.

10) Marco Palestra – Chelsea overpaid by £18.9m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £30m and transfer fee of £49m)

The title of most expensive Italian defender ever might once have evoked thoughts of either rugged, no-nonsense types or stylish, long-haired, unrufflable rogues. But in 2026 it translates to a wing-back with two Azzurri caps and a single full season of professional football.

Cagliari head coach Fabio Pisacane deserves credit for beautifying what does look to be a considerable Chelsea surcharge, calling Palestra “handsome even when he runs” and saying “he looks like a panther, like a leopard,” during a productive loan as the Serie A Defender of the Year in 2025/26.

But Chelsea have paid the rough equivalent of about £1m for each of Palestra’s senior career league appearances. He only played for Atalanta 15 times and they have made a killing by cashing in on Xabi Alonso’s first Blues signing.

9) Ibrahim Mbaye – Aston Villa overpaid by £21.44m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £25.73m and transfer fee of £47.17m)

He’s only 18 so any valuation was always going to be on the low side, particularly as he started just 10 Ligue Un games last season for PSG and was nowhere near their Champions League-winning side.

8) Matias Fernandez-Pardo – Newcastle United overpaid by £21.46m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £30m and transfer fee of £51.46m)

Fresh from overspending on Nick Woltemade and then being forced into an embarrassing loan a year later, Newcastle have thrown over £50m the way of Lille for a striker who scored eight goals in Ligue Un last season. Same place next year?

7) Elliot Anderson – Manchester City overpaid by £21.9m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £94.1m and transfer fee of £116m)

There is a bar-setting transfer every summer, a move around which all others are based. That honour has been bestowed upon Anderson in 2026.

The record £116m fee Manchester City have agreed to pay Nottingham Forest has been cited in updates over Morgan Rogers and Bradley Barcola, and is the barometer against which any other valuation before or since must be measured this summer.

In truth, it includes a great many particular transfer taxes: the English Tax, the Manchester City Tax, the Premier League Tax, the Midfielder Tax, the World Cup Tax and the Evangelos Marinakis Tax, to name but a few.

Manchester United also had to be sufficiently scared away before Enzo Maresca was delivered a statement signing to herald his Etihad era.

6) Sandro Tonali – Spurs overpaid by £24.2m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £68.3m and transfer fee of £92.5m)

Let this be a lesson to Premier League clubs: never ignore the January transfer window, appoint Igor Tudor on the pretence that safety is assured and then panic upon the realisation it most certainly isn’t.

De Zerbi rejected Spurs at least twice before taking the bait and played it perfectly, to the extent he had them over perhaps the world’s largest barrel by March.

The details of the transfer promises made to the Italian back then are unknown, but the proof of them has been laid bare in the opening weeks of an already absurd summer window.

It doesn’t bear thinking how far Daniel Levy would have dragged out negotiations over Tonali, but this iteration of Spurs forewent the potential £500 deadline-day discount to ensure the capture of a player the club which finished five places above them this past season didn’t really want to sell.

In doing so, the Big Six was eternally solidified.

5) Bradley Barcola – Liverpool overpaid by £30m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £77.2m and transfer fee of £107.2m)

PSG knew that if they waited long enough that Liverpool would break the £100m barrier for the French winger, who still doesn’t solve their ‘who will replace Mo Salah?’ problem.

If you’re thinking that’s a lot of money to pay for a winger not even in PSG’s starting XI who notched only two Ligue Un assists last season, it’s because that’s a lot of money to pay for a winger not even in PSG’s starting XI who notched only two Ligue Un assists last season.

4) Enzo Fernandez – Manchester City overpaid by £38.6m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £85.77m and transfer fee of £124.4m)

Manchester City equalled the actual British transfer record to sign Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea, who somehow made a profit on a player who had helped them finish 12th, 6th, 4th and 10th. It’s a piece of extraordinary business from the Blues.

He’s the second of two £100m-plus midfielder purchases from City in a summer when they logged the highest single transfer window spend in history. We absolutely know now that City are all in on Enzo Maresca.

3) Morgan Rogers – Chelsea overpaid by £40.1m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £76.9m and transfer fee of £117m)

Arsenal were said to value Rogers at around £80m and that is roughly congruous with the boffins and scientists on their laptops in air-conditioned offices.

But “the biggest club in London” were the only ones willing to go near what Villa wanted for one of their key players, as part of some purely coincidental egregious back-scratching.

Villa signed Alejandro Garnacho on loan with a conditional obligation to buy before signing Nicolas Jackson for a hefty fee, so after amortisation and player trades and the like, Rogers will probably cost about £5.

That is the game and Chelsea play it better than anyone. Villa have had their PSR troubles for years but this should help finally sort them.

2) Mateus Fernandes – Spurs overpaid by £42.3m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £42.7m and transfer fee of £85m)

He might not spend his entire Spurs career replicating that absurd pre-season goal. But he also might.

1) Savio – Spurs overpaid by £45.1m
(Transfermarkt valuation of £29.9m and transfer fee of £75m)

When Manchester City signed Savio from sister club Troyes for £30.8m in July 2024, the fee was questioned. A 20-year-old Brazilian who scored nine goals and assisted ten for Champions League qualifiers Girona would surely have cost more had the negotiating parties not basically been the same people.

When Spurs signed Savio from Manchester City for an initial £75m, the fee was questioned. Because he had scored two Premier League goals in as many sodding years and that apparently boosted his worth by more than 140%.