Leeds given £256.5m challenge by most expensive XI signed by promoted clubs

Leeds only have one player in an XI of the biggest signings made by promoted Premier League clubs, with ample opportunity for them to take more spaces.

Only signings made by clubs in their first summer as a promoted Premier League side will be counted.

GOALKEEPER: Aaron Ramsdale (£18m, Southampton)
After two years as an Arsenal starter and one spent largely watching David Raya from the bench with a camera shoved in his face, Ramsdale returned to a far more familiar role in 2024: the goalkeeper impressing in a brave but ultimately entirely doomed relegation battle.

That boom-and-bust spell in north London was the career anomaly; Ramsdale has otherwise completed three seasons as a starting Premier League keeper and dropped to the Championship each time with a different club.

Yet his reputation has always remained intact, if not enhanced as the overworked shot-stopper behind an undercooked defence.

Sheffield United signed him for £18.5m when he went down with Bournemouth, then Arsenal handed up to £30m to the Blades after their demise the following summer.

Southampton tried to buck the trend by bringing in Ramsdale upon their promotion instead, with Russell Martin “surprised” that they managed “to woo him, court him and persuade him to come”. But Saints were not for saving and the 27-year-old might actually have to serve some time in the second tier unless someone else fancies trying to break the curse. Feels quite West Ham.

RIGHT-BACK: Neco Williams (£17m, Nottingham Forest)
The great Nottingham Forest transfer summer of 2022 was easy and indeed necessary to mock at the time, but it laid the foundations for a remarkable rise to European qualification.

Thirty players were signed to flesh out a squad Steve Cooper dragged to promotion earlier than planned; only 10 remain on the club’s books three years later.

Williams was among the most expensive, with Forest happy to pay a Liverpool tax on a player who had shown brief glimpses of excellence at Anfield while foolishly timing his existence to coincidence with perhaps the Reds’ strongest full-back pairing ever.

The Alexander-Arnold pathway was defined yet blocked by the man himself, so Williams took a leap of faith and has been an integral part of the journey since. Just 10 players have ever made more Premier League appearances for Forest than the Welshman, who could overtake such luminaries as Scot Gemmill, Stuart Pearce and Steve Stone next season.

CENTRE-BACK: Taylor Harwood-Bellis (£20m, Southampton)
Southampton were bound to sign Harwood-Bellis by the terms of the loan which brought him into their orbit in the first place.

Martin, of course, worded it slightly differently when Saints secured promotion by beating Leeds in a Wembley play-off: “I told him this morning the biggest motivation for me today is that we win and he can continue working with me.”

Harwood-Bellis was unfortunate enough for that blessed arrangement to only survive another seven months or so, even if by that point he could offset an inevitable relegation by becoming the defensive David Nugent with a goal in what remains his only England cap.

CENTRE-BACK: Tyrone Mings (£20m, Aston Villa)
For many, it was irrefutable proof the game had indeed gone. But Aston Villa have rarely spent money so sensibly.

Mings had played 23 times in three-and-a-half seasons at Bournemouth before reaching 18 games in a glittering six-month Championship loan with Villa. Once he helped them secure promotion, all parties were anxious to sort a more permanent arrangement.

Six years later, Mings has played Champions League football – and regrettably handball – while matching Dion Dublin for Premier League appearances at Villa. Mark Delaney, Darius Vassell, Jlloyd Samuel and Juan Pablo Angel are in his sights next in the most Barclays list imaginable.

LEFT-BACK: Matt Targett (£14m, Aston Villa)
Any club ever promoted to the Premier League should be entirely ashamed that Targett remains their most expensive left-back signing as a collective.

Villa supporters have been able to feast on a diet of Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and an absurdly bloated wage bill in part because of the work of foot soldiers like their 2020/21 Players’ Player of the Season, who was at one point the third-most expensive signing in the club’s entire history.

They even made their money back when Newcastle made him one of their first takeover signings, like the lottery winner who immediately goes out and buys a new kettle.

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RIGHT WINGER: Omari Hutchinson (£20m, Ipswich)
When explaining why he left Arsenal for Chelsea in 2022, Hutchinson specifically cited “the pathway” he was presented at Stamford Bridge. If it ever was leading to the first team, the forward might have been shocked by the predictable detour of a loan and then permanent move away.

Hutchinson would have been lost in the shuffle at Chelsea but became the ace in the pack for Ipswich, who wasted little time in celebrating promotion by spending a club-record sum to sign the forward on a five-year deal.

The Tractor Boys perhaps expected a more handsome return than three goals and two assists in 31 Premier League games, but Hutchinson’s proven Championship pedigree suggests he and they might not be gone long.

CENTRAL MIDFIELDER: Habib Diarra (£27m, Sunderland)
After six long years away, Sunderland are inevitably determined not to return from whence they came.

It has been a summer of necessary upheaval at the Stadium of Light. The exit of Tom Watson had been agreed long before he scored the Championship play-off final winner, while Jobe Bellingham could hardly be kept from Borussia Dortmund’s clutches.

The £43m generated from those sales has been reinvested into the permanent capture of Enzo Le Fee and club-record signing of Diarra under the noses of Leeds.

The Black Cats are not slowing down there either. Djordje Petrovic could take the goalkeeper spot if he joins from Chelsea.

CENTRAL MIDFIELDER: Morgan Gibbs-White (£42.5m, Nottingham Forest)
It feels safe to assume that 18 goals, 28 assists, 118 appearances and three seasons of Premier League survival culminating in European qualification have triggered most if not all of the £17.5m in add-ons baked into what did initially seem a preposterous deal for Forest to strike.

By some margin it is the most expensive signing ever completed by a promoted club, and Wolves cannot be upset with their lot after landing roughly £1m per Premier League appearance Gibbs-White made in old gold.

A potent combination of a stunning Sheffield United loan in the Championship, former England youth manager Cooper’s positive relationship with the attacking midfielder and Wolves never really establishing a place for Gibbs-White led him on a course which has transformed his career.

The fully-fledged England international now attracts £100m interest from Manchester City, even if Evangelos Marinakis might implode at the mere thought of cashing in.

LEFT WINGER: Bilal El Khannouss (£21m, Leicester)
Much of what little credit could be derived from a miserable season for Leicester was apportioned to El Khannouss, whose technical ability and work ethic was not well represented by just two goals and three assists in 27 Premier League starts.

It was enough to catch a few admiring glances from Arsenal and the Moroccan is one of the best attacking midfielders on the market, even if financially incontinent Leicester are in no position to demand substantial recompense for a player who did not come cheap when plucked from Gent.

CENTRE-FORWARD: Aleksandar Mitrovic (£27m, Fulham)
Only five players have ever scored more times for Fulham than Mitrovic, although just Gordon Davies (86 goals in 232 appearances) can beat the Serb’s second-tier return of 81 goals in 101 games.

Mitrovic stayed for more than five years at Fulham but never completed consecutive seasons in the same division. An initial loan from Newcastle was made permanent when the Cottagers beat Aston Villa in the play-off final, but 11 goals could not keep Fulham up.

He then sandwiched a risible three-goal top-flight campaign between record-shattering Championship excellence, before finally breaking out from the Sylvan Ebanks-Blake branch of strikers with a Premier League campaign impressive enough to convince Al-Hilal he was worth spending £50m on after a brief threat of industrial action.

CENTRE-FORWARD: Rodrigo (£30m, Leeds)
For almost two decades Rio Ferdinand lorded it as the most expensive Leeds signing ever, an awkward perennial reminder of how they lived the dream and enjoyed the dream.

It was always going to require a full Premier League return for the Whites to scribble over his name in the history books, with Marcelo Bielsa the perfect key to unlock a few previously locked doors.

Spain international Rodrigo joined from Valencia and was the club’s highest-scorer across their most recent three-season spell, even if Raphinha was ultimately the far more successful purchase in many ways.

Another Rodrigo, Muniz of Fulham is on the Leeds radar and would blow most of these deals out of the water.