Jacquet joins £3.6m pair as future Liverpool players with Chelsea consoled by five pre-arranged transfers

Jeremy Jacquet is not the only centre-half confirmed to be joining Liverpool this summer, with ‘the next Mane’ also headed to Anfield in January 2028.

The 2026 January transfer window was busy enough, but teams are using the opportunity to pre-arrange transfers years in advance now to steal a march on their rivals too.

Chelsea are chief among them but plenty of other sides are indulging in the practice. These are the upcoming transfers sorted for future windows involving Premier League clubs.

Geovany Quenda (Sporting to Chelsea, £42.1m, June 2026)

Manchester United were not thrilled to see an obvious target move elsewhere, Ruben Amorim and one of his roaming Sporting wing-backs having been linked for months with a reunion at Old Trafford.

But Chelsea stole in to sort a deal out to bestow upon whoever they appoint as manager in summer 2026 a shiny new signing.

Their willingness to let Quenda stay in Portugal for another season helped Chelsea beat a number of clubs and also negotiate a lower fee, which will still make him a mightily expensive teenager by the time he eventually joins. But not the most expensive in Premier League or even Chelsea history.

Denner Evangelista (Corinthians to Chelsea, £11.5m, June 2026)

The cousin of Arsenal centre-half Gabriel, attacking left-back Denner will join him in London some time after his 18th birthday next February.

Chelsea swooped in despite the Brazil youth international star having not yet made his senior debut for Corinthians.

Of course there is a seven-year contract, add-ons and a sell-on clause.

Emmanuel Emegha (Strasbourg to Chelsea, unknown fee, June 2026)

There is an inevitable shroud of mystery surrounding Chelsea basically poaching their sister club’s best player and captain, down to the uncertainty as to how much they are even paying for 22-year-old forward Emegha.

Strasbourg fans are inevitably furious, dissatisfied with president Marc Keller’s explanation that promising Emegha a move if he led them into Europe with the armband in one more season was “the only way to keep him”.

The Dutchman has struggled with injury throughout his final season however, scoring four goals in just seven Ligue Un games.

Jeremy Jacquet (Rennes to Liverpool, £55m, July 2026)

Perhaps fearful of yet another hijack in their infernal transfer war with Chelsea, Liverpool arranged the arrival of their shiny, brand new Jacquet a few months early.

A centre-half who was playing in Ligue 2 for most of 2024/25 was always likely to line up in the Premier League in 2026/27, but Liverpool’s defensive desperation and willingness to allow Jacquet to finish his only full season as a Rennes regular pushed them over the line first.

They will not mind one bit if the final deal reaches a value of £60m when performance-related add-ons are triggered.

Ifeanyi Ndukwe (Austria Vienna to Liverpool, £2.6m, July 2026)

It is a fee which could rise exponentially with various bonuses and even a sell-on clause, even if it does already represent a record for the most money ever paid to sign an U18 player in Austria.

That is a slightly caveated bar to raise but it underlines how much Liverpool believe in the hype surrounding 6ft 6ins teenage centre-half Ndukwe, who has been earning rave reviews for some time now.

Arsene Wenger is thought to be among his admirers, considering Ndukwe to be among the best defenders he has ever seen at that age. It doesn’t feel like sitting under the Virgil van Dijk learning tree could do much harm.

Modou Keba Cisse (LASK to Aston Villa, £4.3m, July 2026)

The latest in a lengthening line of young defenders signed from across Europe, teenage centre-half Cisse will spend one more season in Austria before joining up with Villa ahead of next season.

“This marks a major step in my career, but I know the real work starts now,” Cisse said. “The Premier League is a dream – not every player gets this opportunity.”

Playing alongside John McGinn remains a tantalising prospect for most professionals.

Dastan Satpaev (Kairat Almaty to Chelsea, £3.3m, August 2026)

It is a record sale for the Kazakh Premier League and a relatively modest five-year deal with a 12-month option at the end. But such is the nature of the transfer, that will actually take Satpaev to summer 2032 if he sees it out alongside an increasingly disgruntled Cole Palmer.

Fabrizio Romano says Chelsea believe Satpaev to have “special skills” but it is weird that their solution to not having a consistently reliable elite centre-forward in 2025 is to keep signing ones who might be ready in 2030 if everything goes perfectly.

Victor Ozhianvuna (Shamrock Rovers to Arsenal, £1.73m, January 2027)

Arsenal were linked with Mason Melia as part of their drive to become a landing spot for Ireland’s best young talents. They lost out in that race to Spurs in January but managed to secure a pre-contract deal with Ohzianvuna.

Club Brugge offered an immediate exit and path to the first team while Arsenal cannot bring the versatile midfielder in until after he turns 18 in January 2027, but all parties felt another year or so developing in Ireland before moving would be beneficial.

Ozhianvuna will join on a four-and-a-half-year contract with add-ons which could double the initial fee and a sell-on clause, having caught Arsenal’s eye during a 2023 summer tournament staged at the club’s academy, while impressing in some LOI cameos and even the Conference League.

Cavan Sullivan (Philadelphia Union to Manchester City, £3.8m, January 2028)

“I can’t even believe you will be playing at sort of that level with pressure on you at 15,” said Gary Neville, who also implored the world to “definitely just let him breathe, let him enjoy himself” and not “put too much pressure on him”.

Sullivan signed the richest homegrown contract in MLS history at just 14, contained within which is a clause tying him to a pre-arranged transfer to Manchester City when he turns a positively ancient 18.

The midfielder has built quite the reputation on the youth scene at club and international level, attracting interest from Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

But Sullivan himself cited the lure of signing for Union, with whom he has familial ties, with an in-built pathway to Europe when he has been given time and patience to develop.

Sidy Barhama Ndiaye (Diambars FC to Liverpool, £1m, January 2028)

While Rio Ngumoha is all the rage now, the 17-year-old will be practically over the hill and retired soon enough and there is a perennial need to source the next prodigy.

Ndiaye is over a year younger and recently caught the eye at the U17 AFCON, featuring in every game for a Senegal side knocked out on penalties in the quarters.

Liverpool quickly moved to secure the future of a boy predictably dubbed ‘the next Mane’, who spent time training with the club this summer and even made a couple of impressive appearances for the U18s.

A forward who can play on either side, Ndiaye is ineligible to join until after his 18th birthday. That is, ludicrously enough, not for another two years and four months.

Deinner Ordonez (Independiente del Valle to Chelsea, unknown fee, January 2028)

It has not been revealed either how much Chelsea will pay for Ordonez, nor the precise length of the presumably ludicrous long-term contract he will sign, but the 16-year-old’s arranged marriage to the Blues has been confirmed.

The centre-half will have to wait until the first transfer window after he turns 18 to make his move to the Premier League.

Liverpool were said to be interested and the Daily Mail even referenced youth scouts calling Ordonez ‘the best player of his age-group in the whole of South America’.

But Chelsea won the race for the latest player coming off the same product line as Moises Caicedo, Kendry Paez, Piero Hincapie and Willian Pacho.

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