£89m flop Pogba 15th and Rice 2nd in ranking of all 20 Premier League clubs’ record signings
Here is our ranking of every Premier League club’s record signing. It’s not the best list but there are a couple of massive hits in there…
20) Everton – Gylfi Sigurdsson (£45m)
Sigurdsson cost the Toffees £45million in 2017.
19) Tottenham – Tanguy Ndombele (£53.7m)
Ndombele turned out to be an untrustworthy recipient of unexpected largesse after the usually stingy Daniel Levy forked out over £50m to land him from Lyon.
He was very, very impressive in his home country but the Frenchman could not find his feet in the Premier League.
18) Fulham – Jean Michael Seri (£25m)
Linked with Barcelona before moving to Craven Cottage from Nice, Seri is another player who loved life in France and ended up being pants in England’s top flight.
17) Crystal Palace – Christian Benteke (£27m)
After netting 15 league goals in his debut season at the club, Benteke could only find the back of the net five times in the next three campaigns. He did get a very decent 10 in 30 in 2020/21 but overall, this wasn’t the best of signings for the money involved.
16) Luton Town – Ryan Giles (£5m)
Luton’s record signing fee is unrecognisable in comparison to the rest of this list. They will probably get relegated back to the Championship with a squad capable of returning at the first time of asking. After a few yo-yos, they might become regulars.
Giles cost the Hatters £5m, swiftly lost his place in the team to Alfie Doughty and was loaned out to Hull City in January. Not ideal.
15) Manchester United – Paul Pogba (£89.3m)
Pogba has been banned from football for four years, meaning he will be 35 the next time he plays a competitive match. If Giles’ current situation is ‘not ideal’, then Pogba’s is totally f**ked.
Was he wasted at Old Trafford, or did he never apply himself correctly after becoming the most expensive player in world football? Which corner are you in? Love him or hate him, you have to agree he was unplayable on his day, which didn’t come often enough.
READ MORE: Life after Man Utd? Ranking how the post-Fergie departees have fared away from Old Trafford
14) Burnley – Zeki Amdouni (£20m)
Six goals in 11 Switzerland caps is a wonderful return for 23-year-old Amdouni, who is definitely one for the future.
There is a lot of promise here and Burnley will hope he can develop into a top player and go from being their record signing to their record sale.
13) Chelsea – Enzo Fernandez (£106.8m)
When the add-ons are paid, Moises Caicedo will be Chelsea’s most expensive acquisition, but for now, it is Fernandez, who the Blues spent all of January 2023 trying to land from Benfica before finally agreeing a deal on deadline day.
The World Cup winner is obviously a very good player and as with everyone else in the squad with the exception of Thiago Silva, it has not quite happened for him yet. He joined at a very tough time but the fact he has not been under the spotlight too much is actually a pretty good sign.
He might not have set the Premier League alight yet, but Enzo looks like someone who can be a huge player for Chelsea over the next decade. Well he better be, given the transfer fee, contract length and salary.
READ MORE: ‘Blue billion pound bottle jobs” last 50 signings ranked has Lukaku last, Palmer 5th
12) Brentford – Nathan Collins (£23m)
We are now entering difficult territory in this ranking. There are several summer signings who cannot be judged too much yet. Collins is one of those players. He is a good player signed by a club who very rarely get their signings wrong.
11) Sheffield United – Sander Berge (£22m)
After Sheffield United were relegated in 2021, many people expected Berge to join a Premier League club. Ironically, this did not come to fruition until the Blades earned promotion back to the top flight.
The Norwegian’s move to Burnley last summer raised a few eyebrows but Gustavo Hamer’s switch to Bramall Lane quickly shut the critics up.
On his day, Berge was unplayable in the Championship and was well-liked by the club’s supporters.
10) Nottingham Forest – Ibrahim Sangare (£30m)
Sangare’s move to Nottingham Forest brought a collective, ‘Corr, the power of the Premier League, eh?’ when he joined from PSV on deadline day in the summer.
He is a terrific holding midfielder who could have stayed in the Netherlands and played Champions League football, instead deciding to move to Nottingham and play for a team that nearly got relegated last season.
The Ivory Coast international has the potential to be a world-class player and his midfield partnership with Nicolas Dominguez looks like it will be a force to be reckoned with.
9) Aston Villa – Moussa Diaby (£43.2m, rising to £51.9m)
Bundesliga signings seem to go one way or the other. You are either an Ilkay Gundogan or a Jadon Sancho and the jury is out on Diaby eight months after his move to Villa Park.
His start to life in the Premier League was impressive, but the winger has fallen off and is now behind another former Bayer Leverkusen winger, Leon Bailey, in the pecking order.
After a poor debut season from Bailey, Unai Emery will Diaby can find his feet as the Jamaican has done.
8) West Ham – Lucas Paqueta (£51m)
After a slow start to life in England, Paqueta found his groove towards the end of last season. He assisted the winning goal for Jarrod Bowen in the Europa Conference League final, which probably paid the £51m back, if truth be told.
Paqueta is a bloody fantastic player and the more he gets to grips with the Premier League, the better he can become. It’s no surprise Manchester City wanted to sign him before switching their attention to Matheus Nunes. The reason they ended their pursuit could end up being the reason he moves down in this list, mind…
7) Bournemouth – Jefferson Lerma (£25m)
Bournemouth paid a cool £25m to land Lerma from Levante in 2018 and they got five great years out of the Colombian before he made the move to Crystal Palace on a free transfer last July.
Lerma stayed on the south coast to help the club get back in to the Premier League and he left a hero having played for them 184 times.
6) Wolves – Matheus Cunha (£44m)
Cunha failed to impress after his big-money transfer from Atletico Madrid but he has looked really, really good under Gary O’Neil.
Perhaps lacking the cutting edge O’Neil would like to see in the final third, the Brazilian international is difficult to get off the ball and is getting better and better.
5) Brighton – Joao Pedro (£30m)
Brighton do not tend to get transfers wrong, though it has to be said their best business strategy is to buy unknown quantities for pennies before flogging them for a silly profit. Joao Pedro is not signed to sell in the future; he is here to immediately help the Seagulls compete in Europe and the Premier League.
The 22-year-old has a brilliant 19 goals in 32 matches for his new club and does not look like being a flop for a club that gets a kick out of selling their best players after squeezing every drop of ability from them.
4) Newcastle United – Alexander Isak (£58m, rising to £63m)
Newcastle look to have struck gold with Isak. Only 24 years young, the Swede can lead the line for the Magpies for years to come and has the potential to be the best in his position in the Premier League.
This is not to say he will reach that kind of level, but there is a bit of Thierry Henry about him. Tall, quick and brilliant with the ball at his feet, Isak has everything you need from a striker and if players around him like Anthony Gordon can develop, Newcastle will have a very dangerous front three to battle for Premier League glory.
3) Manchester City – Jack Grealish (£100m)
Grealish played a big part in Manchester City winning the Treble last term, stopping all the flop talk after a slow start to life under Pep Guardiola.
‘There’s more to come from Grealish,’ Ian Watson wrote in January 2022 and he was not wrong. The former Aston Villa captain made the left-wing position his own last term, though he will have to step up his game once again with the exciting and incredibly direct Jeremy Doku impressing in his position.
2) Arsenal – Declan Rice (£100m plus £5m in add-ons)
Nobody has mentioned Rice’s transfer fee since August, which says all you need to know about how good he has been for Arsenal. Two years ago, you could never see or hear the words ‘Jack’ and ‘Grealish’ without his very similar price tag attached.
Rice has been a rock in the Gunners midfield, getting his long legs where others cannot and providing some necessary cover for his defenders. If Mikel Arteta’s side win the league, the addition of the ex-West Ham captain will be why.
1) Liverpool – Virgil van Dijk (£75m)
Absolute no-brainer, this. Van Dijk tends to top any transfer-based feature we do and like he was almost two years ago, he is first here.
Signed to solidify a shaky Liverpool backline, Van Dijk guided Jurgen Klopp’s men to a Champions League final six months after signing and then played at a level we have not seen from a Premier League centre-half for quite some time to help the Reds become European champions again. Oh, and they won their first Premier League title.
The big Dutchman will leave Liverpool a legend and in the eyes of many, the best defender Our League has ever seen.
READ MORE: Van Dijk reigns supreme in shockingly bad list of all 13 Premier League signings who cost £70m-plus
