The most expensive uncapped English players ever will soon have a change at No. 1)
The only possible way the title of most expensive uncapped English player would change hands from a Manchester United signing was with a switch of countries.
These players were all uncapped at the time of their signing; whether they went on to represent England is immaterial.
20) Alex Scott (Bristol City to Bournemouth, £20m to £25m, August 2023)
Gary O’Neil must have been sick of the sight of Bournemouth in summer 2023, losing out on top Wolves target Scott to the team which traded him for Andoni Iraola months prior.
Scott, then a teenager, eventually impressed after overcoming an injury which delayed his Bournemouth debut. On a different timeline he really might have made that England squad for Euro 2024 but his first U21 call only came that March as other cabs flew off the rank ahead of him.
19) Tyrone Mings (Bournemouth to Aston Villa, £20m to £26.5m, July 2019)
It was A Big Thing when Aston Villa agreed to chuck £20m Bournemouth’s way in the process of making the loan of Mings a more permanent feature in 2019.
The centre-half had played a key part in their rise from the Championship and as that year’s official Promoted Team That Makes A Load Of New Signings, it made perfect sense from Villa’s viewpoint if no-one else’s. An England squad place arrived a few months later and the Villa captaincy followed in 2021, much to Steven Gerrard’s future chagrin.
18) Jobe Bellingham (Sunderland to Borussia Dortmund, £27.8m to £32m, June 2025)
Other interested parties included Bundesliga rivals Leipzig and Frankfurt but it is a remarkably strong pitch to simply ask a player how their brother is doing. Dortmund primed Jude for superstardom and Jobe will be eyeing those footsteps like any other hand-me-down.
17) Jude Bellingham (Birmingham to Borussia Dortmund, £22.5m to £30m, July 2020)
Manchester United pulled out all the stops and even wheeled in Sir Alex Ferguson but Borussia Dortmund’s pitch involved nonsense like clear pathways to the first team and boring Bellingham decided to make the best possible decision for his career instead of picking based on banter and vibes because he is boring.
Within four months of his Germany move, Bellingham was firmly embedded in the England set-up, not to be moved for about two decades. He cannot have been far off doing a Jay Bothroyd and claiming a Three Lions caps while playing for a lower-division club.
16) Aaron Ramsdale (Sheffield United to Arsenal, £24m to £30m, August 2021)
Ramsdale was as uncapped by the senior England side when he joined Arsenal as when he moved back to Sheffield United from Bournemouth the year before. The only difference this time was the ridicule he faced upon that switch to north London as a twice-relegated keeper signed as back-up for Bernd Leno.
It took Ramsdale a couple of months to prove the doubters wrong and not much longer to force his way into the England picture. But both club and country moved on quickly to leave him stranded in the Championship.
15) Ryan Sessegnon (Fulham to Tottenham, £25m to £30m, August 2019)
It is a dreadful shame that the 25-year-old Sessegnon remains uncapped. A total of 57 appearances in five seasons for Spurs leaves no mystery as to the problem for a talented player who has been derailed by injuries.
The more comfortable climate of Fulham has inspired a career renaissance from a player happy to concentrate on finding his feet again at club level.
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14) Jordan Pickford (Sunderland to Everton, £25m to £30m, June 2017)
“The club’s only going forward, so it’s the best thing I can be doing,” said Pickford upon his move from Sunderland to Everton, who had just finished 7th in the Premier League and have come 8th, 8th, 12th, 10th, 16th, 17th, 15th and 13th in the subsequent eight campaigns.
His first England call-up came that August before his Three Lions debut in the November. No-one has been able to out-rave him between the sticks for his country in the meantime; Pickford is two clean sheets clear of Gordon Banks and just three behind David Seaman.
13) Noni Madueke (PSV to Chelsea, £30m, January 2023)
Never has a club spent more money in a January transfer window, but even at £30m Madueke was only their fourth most expensive signing in a hectic month.
It has not been entirely plain sailing since but the 23-year-old is a Premier League hat-trick scorer with three assists in six England caps.
12) Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (Leicester to Chelsea, £30m, June 2024)
It was probably not part of the grand recruitment push to offer four times as many Conference League as Premier League minutes but that was the fate which befell Dewsbury-Hall when he accompanied Enzo Maresca to Chelsea.
The Leicester Supporters’ and Players’ Player of the Season was lost in the shuffle in his first year at Stamford Bridge, and the only likely change will be fewer consolatory European opportunities for Dewsbury-Hall now Chelsea are back in the Champions League.
11) Archie Gray (Leeds to Tottenham, £30m, July 2024)
Leeds were ‘heartbroken’ to lose the boyhood brilliance of an academy product Brentford bid £35m for and, according to some outlets, Tottenham paid up to £40m to sign.
Gray perhaps didn’t realise he was signing up for a ludicrously confusing season spent playing in about five different positions for a team which finished 17th and won the Europa League, but Ange Postecoglou knew he could lean on a teenager with 32 combined caps for England U15s, U16s, U17s, U19s, U20s and U21s.
10) Liam Delap (Ipswich to Chelsea, £30m, June 2025)
Ipswich knew and readily embraced their role as the stepping stone for Delap, even if they might have envisaged a fine full debut Premier League season for the striker being enough to keep them up.
The odds are that Delap would have jumped ship regardless with such a tempting release clause but a dozen goals in an unsuccessful fight against relegation confirmed it.
The only variable was which club would be fortunate enough to inherit the Manchester City academy product; Chelsea will do their best to ruin the slightly unhinged madman.
9) Tino Livramento (Southampton to Newcastle, £32m, August 2023)
Signed by Saints from Chelsea for just £5m in 2021, right-back Livramento earned Southampton a massive profit after just 34 appearances, his spell cruelly curtailed by injury.
That likely contributed to his slow start at Newcastle, eventually turning out 35 times in his debut season and helping gradually wean Eddie Howe off his Kieran Trippier fix.
8) Ollie Watkins (Brentford to Aston Villa, £28m to £33m, September 2020)
One season as a centre-forward was enough to tempt Aston Villa into parting with up to £33m for Watkins in September 2020. Those £5m in add-ons have surely been achieved across 87 goals, 18 England caps and Champions League qualification.
7) Lewis Hall (Chelsea to Newcastle, £28m to £35m, July 2024)
With only 12 career appearances to his name by the time he joined Newcastle on loan, Hall was rather unsurprisingly not in the England picture.
A first season with the Magpies in which he made his move permanent but still struggled for game time for the most part did little to improve those prospects.
But the 20-year-old has his feet firmly under the St James’ Park table now as a fully-fledged England international.
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6) Elliot Anderson (Newcastle to Nottingham Forest, £35m, July 2024)
It instinctively felt like an absurd fee but a few factors explained that final number beyond PSR-based cynicism.
Anderson, a young and highly-rated player in a position Forest were openly desperate to reinforce, was on a long-term contract with a Premier League rival. And ultimately the back-scratching transfer of Odysseas Vlachodimos between the two clubs effectively offset about £20m of the valuation of a player on the England periphery.
5) Morgan Gibbs-White (Wolves to Nottingham Forest, £25m to £44.5m, August 2022)
It feels as though a fair amount of those add-ons might well have been triggered by any of 18 goals, 28 assists, the avoidance of relegation, European qualification or England recognition.
4) Max Kilman (Wolves to West Ham, £40m, July 2024)
An England international of 25 caps, but in futsal rather than association football. That actually prevented Kilman from making a proposed switch in allegiance to represent Ukraine from Euro 2021 onwards, leaving the Three Lions as his only route to playing for a country.
His consistency for Wolves put him on the fringes of an England call-up and a £40m move to West Ham should theoretically have been the final push. But he doesn’t feel particularly close to breaking through under Thomas Tuchel.
3) Anthony Gordon (Everton to Newcastle, £40m, January 2023)
It was assumed by many that Newcastle had taken leave of their entire senses when throwing as much as £45m at Everton for a forward with seven goals and eight assists in 78 games.
Gordon already outstripped both before hitting that appearance mark at Newcastle, until Liverpool speculation left his ‘head in a mess’.
This past season was a little slower for the Gordon bandwagon but someone had to make way for Jacob Murphy’s Ballon d’Or push.
2) Cole Palmer (Manchester City to Chelsea, £40m to £42.5m, September 2023)
It is easy to forget just how ludicrous this move was at the time.
It made absolutely no sense: Chelsea did not need yet another young, exciting forward and if Palmer was of the requisite quality, Manchester City would never have let him go.
But Chelsea have thrown more than enough at the wall for some to stick and Palmer was the shoot of inspiration rather than yet another questionable deal. By the end of the year he had become their most important player and that responsibility only increased to the tune of an England debut, goal and place in their European Championship squad, as well as a goal in the final.
Palmer had played just 41 games at senior level when Chelsea signed him for the rough equivalent of around £1m per career appearance. It has gone well.
1) Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Crystal Palace to Manchester United, £45m to £50m, July 2019)
Crystal Palace supporters probably felt that it was the usual show of big club bias from Southgate to not cap Wan-Bissaka, then call him up two months after he joined Manchester United. But the emergence of Eberechi Eze, Marc Guehi and Adam Wharton proved Palace to be the former manager’s favourite club, and Wan-Bissaka remains as uncapped at Old Trafford as he ever was at Selhurst Park.
He will have known that the England door closed long before he officially switched allegiance to DR Congo in May 2025. Wan-Bissaka is still yet to represent them after withdrawing from the June internationals due to ‘personal medical reasons’, but even when he does make that first international appearance, he will remain England’s most expensive uncapped player ever at least in spirit.
