Ten Premier League summer 2024 transfers for £175.3m that everyone has already forgotten

The Premier League season has not long since finished and the Euros are soon to start but clubs have already spent £175m on some forgotten summer transfers.

Cameron Archer (Sheffield United to Aston Villa)
Aston Villa supporters perhaps expected their shattering of the Champions League glass ceiling to precipitate a period of uninhibited transfer ambition. No longer would their better players be subjected to potential poaching by more established clubs, while Villa themselves would be shopping in an entirely different market for their own goods.

But Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United are still circling the most prized assets of a club needing to balance the books, and while no-one realistically anticipated a move for Kylian Mbappe, their first signing as a club in elite European competition after a 42-year hiatus is the return of an academy product who was just relegated with one of the worst teams in Premier League history.

“He is our player and we want to keep him under our control always because we believe in him,” Unai Emery said of Archer a fortnight or so before essentially lending him to Sheffield United for a sizeable loan fee. His £18m move contained a clause obliging Villa to sign him back for about £14m if and indeed when the Blades were relegated, a fate his four goals and one assist in 30 games could not avert.

Lucas Bergvall (Djurgarden to Spurs)
Spurs actually have a couple of future deals wrapped up. Croatian teenager Luka Vuskovic is joining Graham Potter’s side in the summer of 2025, while Ange Postecoglou’s squad will be furnished with the similarly youthful talents of Bergvall this pre-season.

“It feels depressing, of course,” the 18-year-old recently said of the £8.5m move, presumably discussing his impending departure from Djurgarden but actually obviously talking about deciding to join Spurs despite interest from Barcelona.

Taylor Harwood-Bellis (Manchester City to Southampton)
Those 115 charges continue to hang over the smooth heads of Pep Guardiola and friends, but Manchester City’s transfer cheat code continues to work to planned perfection. Harwood-Bellis does not actually quite qualify for that criteria after playing eight games for his boyhood club – exclusively in cup competitions – yet that £20m sale will help offset any expensive deals of their own.

Harwood-Bellis will nevertheless make his Premier League debut imminently, having missed only two games all Championship season for play-off winners Southampton. Saints lost the first of those matches without their stalwart centre-half 5-0, drawing the other 2-2. An England call might beckon by the end of the year, especially as the Three Lions are about to head into Euro 2024 with the same starting defence as the one they used at the 2018 World Cup.

Lewis Hall (Chelsea to Newcastle)
There was a time when it seemed as though Newcastle’s move for Hall might have remained an expensive £4m loan rather than the potential £35m switch. The player himself barely featured until the closing straight – his first Premier League start for the Magpies came in April – but the performance-related clause which had to be triggered for him to swap one PSR minefield for another actually related to Newcastle’s final position.

Eddie Howe had to steer his side no lower than 14th for Hall to join for good, something Newcastle only guaranteed with six games remaining. The teenager will hope for and almost certainly receive more opportunities over his long-term contract at St James’ Park.

Ibrahim Osman (Nordsjaelland to Brighton)
West Ham spent most of January in an internal turmoil as to whether they should sign Osman – while simultaneously welcoming the chance to borrow Kalvin Phillips for £3m and cover all his Manchester City wages with open arms – but Brighton had no such qualms.

That Osman has taken the same pathway as obvious Chelsea target Simon Adingra is no coincidence. Brighton obviously expect teenager Osman to make the same steps up from Ghana’s Right to Dream Academy to Nordsjaelland and then the Premier League, and these are the deals they tend to nail.

Luis Sinisterra and Enes Unal (Leeds and Getafe to Bournemouth)
Only eight Premier League clubs – the usual six plus predictably busy teams in Newcastle and West Ham on European budgets – spent more than Bournemouth in the summer of 2023. The Cherries were obliged to continue that trend when clauses to sign Sinisterra and Unal permanently were triggered over the course of their loan deals.

Sinisterra contributed four goals and three assists to the Andoni Iraola cause, while Unal managed two of each after joining in January. Both are already valued members of a solid mid-table squad hoping to climb further.

Tommy Doyle (Manchester City to Wolves)
Another who barely played for Manchester City but will boost their bottom line, Doyle’s fourth loan spell away from the Etihad became his last when Wolves took up the option to make him theirs permanently for £4.3m in May.

Not that City are out of the picture: they retain a 50 per cent sell-on clause and unspecified buy-back option on the midfielder, who slowly grew into Gary O’Neil’s team before firmly establishing himself as a starter in the second half of the season.

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Abdul Fatawu (Sporting to Leicester)
“The problem with young players is they are up and down,” said Enzo Maresca in April. The Italian must find a solution soon into his reign at Chelsea when that move finally goes through, but Fatawu kindly at least helped the manager acclimatise with such challenges.

Fatawu had more than twice as many Ghana caps as European top-flight league games when he joined Leicester on loan from Sporting, even making a brief appearance at the 2022 World Cup. But there was barely any obvious adaptation period for the 20-year-old, who scored seven goals and assisted 13 in his first campaign in English football to help the Foxes secure promotion.

It remains to be seen who helps guide his debut Premier League season but Leicester, despite their potentially ruinous financial problems, will not regret having to pay £14.5m to make Fatawu their first signing back in the division.

Igor Thiago (Club Brugge to Brentford)
For some of these deals to go under the radar or even entirely unnoticed is absolutely fair. Making loans permanent is a necessary but fairly boring part of transfer season and it is not often the bigger, more complicated and protracted moves are completed so far in advance.

Then there is Brentford, who broke their transfer record to sign a striker for £30m when they were still only six points above the relegation zone, proactively planning for the presumed departure of a forward who remains on their books.

“It is relatively obvious that Ivan Toney will probably be sold this summer,” manager Thomas Frank said before praising Brentford’s recruitment team for being “ahead of the curve” in capturing Thiago as his replacement.

The 22-year-old cost £30m and scored 29 goals in 55 games for Club Brugge this past season, providing a further six assists for the Belgian champions and Conference League semi-finalists. If he can replicate anything close to that form in England, the Brazilian will take Toney’s place whether he is sold or not.

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