The Premier League doesn’t buy superstars, it makes them – who’s next?

Where were all the superstar signings in the Premier League this summer?

Sure, clubs spent hundreds of millions on new recruits; the Premier League remains the dominant force when it comes to transfer splurges. But bona fide superstars arriving on these shores were basically nonexistent.

The most expensive signing in the Premier League this summer was Enzo Fernandez, a player already the subject of an extortionately priced arrival into the Premier League when Chelsea signed him from Benfica in January 2023. He wasn’t a genuine superstar then, and he isn’t a genuine superstar now, even if Manchester City were willing to break their transfer record for him.

Chelsea and City were responsible for the next two biggest spends too – on Morgan Rogers and Elliot Anderson. Both good players, without doubt, but worthy of the eye-watering fees they went for? Debatable.

As for the most expensive newcomer to the Premier League, it was Liverpool new boy Bradley Barcola. A brilliant talent, but one who was a fringe player at PSG. And as Tim Sherwood noted after watching him once: He can’t finish. If the Premier League really was a magnet for superstars, we would have seen Ousmane Dembele or Khvicha Kvaratskehlia arriving at Anfield instead.

Likewise, the Vinicius Junior to Arsenal saga might not have had such a predictable ending with his renewal at Real Madrid.

That one certainly got us thinking for a while. Would it have been the biggest ever Premier League signing by stature? Quite possibly. But it only ever existed hypothetically.

Because the Premier League, though it breaks the market with its ludicrous levels of spending, doesn’t really buy superstars. It makes them.

Think of Thierry Henry, Luis Suarez or Didier Drogba. Henry joined Arsenal after a pitiful three-goal season in Serie A with Juventus; he became a regular 20-plus-goal-a-season striker in the Premier League.

Suarez joined Liverpool at the same time, famously, as Andy Carroll, and there seemed to be more fuss about the latter. How misguided that was. A few years later, after obliterating the Premier League, off to Barcelona the Uruguayan went.

And almost nobody rated Drogba when he joined Chelsea at Jose Mourinho’s insistence in 2004. They thought a lot of him by the time he was leaving eight years and 157 goals later.

The list could go on. Patrick Vieira, Fernando Torres, Mohamed Salah, even Philippe Coutinho, no matter how it went for him afterwards. Someone called Cristiano Ronaldo, too… you get the picture.

From the current crop of Premier League stars, there are some whose arrivals were relatively unheralded before they exploded, like Moises Caicedo or William Saliba. Erling Haaland probably comes the closest to having been an existing superstar when he made his move to the Premier League with Manchester City, when he was already far down the road of his superstar-in-the-making process (one which he has now long since completed).

So, who’s next?

With the transfer window now closed, the time for Premier League clubs to try and buy superstars is over, for another few months at least. And as the real football unfolds on the pitch, it’s time for the next batch of tomorrow’s superstars to emerge. But who will they be?

Mamadou Sangare at Brentford looks a find. We only have his first impressions to go off so far, and as Brentford’s club-record signing, he wasn’t exactly a small investment for them. But in a market where defensive midfielders are going for enormous sums – and Sangare isn’t strictly a holding player; he operates on the front foot – we could easily see a future in which he becomes the subject of an even more lucrative transfer raid.

Ayyoub Bouaddi, another deeper midfielder, has also turned heads with the way his Manchester City career has started. Granted, he did cost them more than £80m, so we can hardly call him either unheralded or undiscovered.

In keeping with the recent summer signings theme, Tarik Muharemovic is becoming an instant hit at Leeds United. If the big defender continues the way he has started, they might not be able to keep hold of him for too long. He’s already bossing clearance stats.

There’s even Victor Munoz at Liverpool, a signing somewhat overshadowed this summer while any updates about the bigger prize of Barcola were anxiously awaited. But what if it’s a Suarez and Carroll repeat and Munoz turns out better? We suspect not, but the modestly priced Spaniard – because £34.5m was a modest price this summer – looks exciting with his pace and direct approach.

It’s a similar story with Christos Tzolis at Arsenal. At first glance, signing a player who previously struggled at Norwich City didn’t scream superstar, regardless of his rise in form at Club Brugge. Indeed, the lukewarm returns last season by former Brighton struggler Viktor Gyokeres, regardless of his rise in form at Sporting CP, offered a cautionary tale.

But Tzolis, buoyed by the lack of a follow-up Vinicius Junior addition, has started promisingly at the Emirates. Will he become a superstar? Only time will tell, but if he can replicate the numbers he was producing in Belgium, he’ll be on his way.

One player we are yet to see, but have full conviction will be a hit in the Premier League, is Aston Villa newbie Johan Manzambi. He looked fantastic at the World Cup, with the caveat that can be a risky stage to judge players. But at 20 years old, his ceiling is high.

Beyond the most recent acquisitions, Eli Junior Kroupi is another talent currently on the treatment table who has already shown flashes of brilliance for Bournemouth. Were it not for his injury, he might have been netting them a tidy profit this summer by taking his next step.

Then, on a slightly different track, there are your promising homegrown youngsters – the likes of Max Dowman, Rio Ngumoha and maybe even JJ Gabriel looking to take their next strides, which potentially might be big enough to make their clubs hesitate over trying to sign existing superstars anyway.

And that could be just as well, when those genuine superstar signings seldom happen anyway.

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