The transfer record progression of every Premier League club

Ian Watson

By our count, the three players to appear on this transfer record list more than once are Fernando Torres, Andy Carroll and Rio Ferdinand. Hmm.

 

ARSENAL
Andrei Arshavin – £15m (Zenit St Petersburg, February 2009)

Mesut Ozil – £42.5m (Real Madrid, September 2013)

Alexandre Lacazette – £46.5m (Lyon, July 2017)

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – £55.5m (Borussia Dortmund, January 2018)

Nicolas Pepe – £72m (Lille, August 2019)

Not a single unqualified success among them, which is impressive in a way. Edu has work to do.

 

ASTON VILLA
Stewart Downing – £12m (Middlesbrough, July 2009)

Darren Bent – £18m (Sunderland, January 2011)

Wesley Moraes – £22m (Club Brugge, June 2019)

Ollie Watkins – £28m (Brentford, September 2020)

Emi Buendia – £30m plus add-ons (Norwich, June 2021)

Buendia has bumped James Milner off the list after Villa broke their transfer record for the third summer in succession. 

 

BRENTFORD
Ezri Konsa – £2.85m (Charlton, June 2018)

Mathias Jensen – £3.5m (Celta Vigo, July 2019)

Pontus Jansson – £5.5m (Leeds United, July 2019)

Bryan Mbeumo – £5.85m (Troyes, August 2019)

Ivan Toney – £5m rising to £10m with add-ons (Peterborough, September 2020)

Hands up here: we are presuming that a fair few of Toney’s add-ons are due after his record-breaking 32-goal season which brought Brentford to the Premier League.

 

BRIGHTON
Davy Propper – £10m (PSV, August 2017)

Jose Izquierdo – £13.5m (Club Brugge, August 2017)

Jurgen Locadia – £14m (PSV, January 2018)

Alireza Jahanbakhsh – £17m (AZ Alkmaar, July 2018)

Adam Webster – £20m (Bristol City, August 2019)

Bit Flemish. Does Adam Webster have some Eredivisie or Jupiler Pro League experience everyone has collectively managed to overlook?

 

Every Premier League club’s most valuable asset

BURNLEY
Steven Defour – £7.3m (Anderlecht, August 2016)

Jeff Hendrick – £10.5m (Derby, August 2016)

Robbie Brady – £13m (Norwich, January 2017)

Chris Wood – £15m (Leeds, August 2017)

Ben Gibson – £15m (Middlesbrough, August 2018)

A centre-half and a centre-forward sharing the title of Burnley’s most expensive player ever just feels right.

 

CHELSEA
Andriy Shevchenko – £30.8m (AC Milan, May 2006)

Fernando Torres – £50m (Liverpool, January 2011)

Alvaro Morata – £58m (Real Madrid, July 2017)

Kepa Arrizabalaga – £71m (Athletic Bilbao, August 2018)

Kai Havertz – £75.8m (Leverkusen, September 2020)

Some reports suggested the Havertz fee did not represent a club record at the time but Chelsea won’t mind displacing Kepa. And his Champions League final winner alone repaid the investment. 

 

CRYSTAL PALACE
Dwight Gayle – £4.5m (Peterborough, July 2013)

James McArthur – £7m (Wigan, September 2014)

Yohan Cabaye – £10m (PSG, July 2015)

Andros Townsend – £13m (Newcastle, July 2016)

Christian Benteke – £27m (Liverpool, August 2016)

Roy Hodgson spent £42.2m since his appointment as Crystal Palace manager in September 2017 until his departure in May. Alan Pardew’s entire summer 2016 transfer outlay was £51.5m. Glorious.

 

EVERTON
Yakubu Aiyegbini – £11.3m (Middlesbrough, August 2007)

Marouane Fellaini – £15m (Standard Liege, September 2008)

Romelu Lukaku – £28m (Chelsea, July 2014)

Jordan Pickford – £30m (Sunderland, June 2017)

Gylfi Sigurdsson – £45m (Swansea, August 2017)

Everton more than doubled their money on Fellaini and Lukaku. Their chances of repeating the trick with either of the two who followed look slim…

The 956 retained and 143 released Premier League players

LEEDS
Tomas Brolin – £4.5m (Parma, November 1995)

Michael Bridges – £5.6m (Sunderland, July 1999)

Olivier Dacourt – £7.2m (Lens, July 2000)

Rio Ferdinand – £18m (West Ham, November 2000)

Rodrigo – £27m (Valencia, August 2020)

It took 20 months for Leeds to break their transfer record thrice from July 1999. It took 20 years for Leeds to break their transfer record once from November 2000.

 

LEICESTER
Nampalys Mendy – £13m (Nice, July 2016)

Ahmed Musa – £16m (CSKA Moscow, July 2016)

Islam Slimani – £29.7m (Sporting, September 2016)

Ayoze Perez – £30m (Newcastle, July 2019)

Youri Tielemans – £40m (Monaco, July 2019)

They indulged in the summer after winning the Premier League title and during their first summer with Brendan Rodgers in charge. That’s what the smell of trophies and mince will do to you.

 

LIVERPOOL
Fernando Torres – £20.2m (Atletico Madrid, July 2007)

Luis Suarez – £22.7m (Ajax, January 2011)

Andy Carroll – £35m (Newcastle, January 2011)

Mo Salah – £36.9m (Roma, June 2017)

Virgil van Dijk – £75m (Southampton, January 2018)

That really is quite the hit rate. Virgil van Dijk has two more Liverpool goals than Andy Carroll, by the way.

 

Love it or list it: One per club with one year on contract

 

MANCHESTER CITY
Kevin de Bruyne – £54m (Wolfsburg, August 2015)

Aymeric Laporte – £57.2m (Athletic Bilbao, January 2018)

Riyad Mahrez – £60m (Leicester, July 2018)

Rodri – £62.8m (Atletico Madrid, July 2019)

Ruben Dias – £64.3m (Benfica, September 2020)

City have never spent mega sums on individuals – until now? They’ll have to at least double their current record to land Harry Kane.

 

MANCHESTER UNITED
Rio Ferdinand – £29.3m (Leeds, July 2002)

Dimitar Berbatov – £30.8m (Tottenham, September 2008)

Juan Mata – £37.1m (Chelsea, January 2014)

Angel di Maria – £59.7m (Real Madrid, August 2014)

Paul Pogba – £89.3m (Juventus, August 2016)

Crystal Palace are the only other Premier League club not to break their transfer record at least once from August 2017 onwards. They refused to smash their record for Jadon Sancho last summer. A year on, they don’t appear to want to go near it. 

 

Paul-Pogba-Mo-Salah

 

NEWCASTLE
Faustino Asprilla – £6.7m (Parma, February 1996) 9 48

Alan Shearer – £15m (Blackburn, July 1996)

Michael Owen – £16m (Real Madrid, August 2005) 26 in 71

Miguel Almiron – £20m (Atlanta United, January 2019) 8 in 80

Joelinton – £40m (Hoffenheim, July 2019) 6 in 68

The first, third, fourth and fifth entrants have scored 49 goals between them in 267 Premier League games for Newcastle. It took Shearer just 86 top-flight appearances for the Magpies to reach that mark.

 

NORWICH
Jon Newsome – £1m (Leeds United, July 1994)

Dean Ashton – £3m (Crewe, January 2005)

Robert Earnshaw – £3.5m (West Brom, January 2006)

Ricky Van Wolfswinkel – £8.5m (Sporting Lisbon, July 2013)

Steven Naismith – £8.5m (Everton, January 2016)

Just look at those names. One goal in 25 Premier League games for RVW, by the way. Oh and one in 13 for Naismith. No wonder they are hesitant about breaking it again, despite making millions on selling their best players.

 

Every completed Premier League transfer this summer

 

SOUTHAMPTON
Dani Osvaldo – £14.6m (Roma, August 2013)

Sofiane Boufal – £16m (Lille, August 2016)

Mario Lemina – £18.1m (Juventus, August 2017)

Guido Carillo – £19m (Monaco, January 2018)

Danny Ings – £20m (Liverpool, July 2019)

The club famed for providing a conveyor belt of talent for Liverpool finally snapped their underwhelming transfer record streak by signing a player from them. That’s some 200 IQ sh*t.

 

TOTTENHAM
Roberto Soldado – £26m (Valencia, August 2013)

Erik Lamela – £29m (Roma, August 2013)

Moussa Sissoko – £30m (Newcastle, September 2016)

Davinson Sanchez – £42m (Ajax, August 2017)

Tanguy Ndombele – £53.7m (Lyon, July 2019)

Jose Mourinho didn’t fancy Ndombele much and nor seemingly did Ryan Mason. Let’s see what Paulo Fonseca thinks…

 

NEWS: Fonseca wants three Roma stars at Spurs in ‘reverse’ Mourinho

 

WATFORD
Abdoulaye Doucouré – £8m (Rennes, February 2016)

Isaac Success – £12.5m (Granada, July 2016)

Roberto Pereyra – £13m (Juventus, August 2016)

Andre Gray – £18.5m (Burnley, August 2017)

Ismaila Sarr – £40m (Rennes, August 2019)

The Hornets resisted the temptation to get their money back on Sarr. It was a smart move given he cleaned up at Watford’s Player of the Season awards.

 

WEST HAM
Andy Carroll – £15m (Liverpool, June 2013)

Andre Ayew – £20.7m (Swansea, August 2016)

Marko Arnautovic – £25m (Stoke, August 2017)

Felipe Anderson – £36m (Lazio, July 2018)

Sebastien Haller – £45m (Eintracht Frankfurt, July 2019)

West Ham should stop breaking their transfer record and stick to signing players from the Czech league or Watford’s reserves. 

 

WOLVES
Ruben Neves – £15.8m (Porto, July 2017)

Rui Patricio – £16m (Sporting, June 2018)

Adama Traore – £18m (Middlesbrough, August 2018)

Raul Jimenez – £30m (Benfica, June 2019)

Fabio Silva – £35.6m (Porto, September 2020)

That stinks of Jorge Mendes, save for the brief sojourn to what is absolutely not north Yorkshire.

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