Liverpool top transfer winners ahead of Arsenal, Chelsea and, in the end, just about Spurs

Dave Tickner 01 Sep 2025 11:41 PM

Alexander Isak, Joao Pedro and Ebere Eze made big summer moves

Few things dafter in this great game than pretending it’s even possible to ‘win’ the transfer window, that it is even a construct that contains within it winners or indeed losers.

Every team’s summer will, almost by definition, be some combination of notable successes, disappointing near-misses and significant squad holes filled or unfilled.

Really, only a damn fool would try to pick through the entire summer’s worth of transfer ups and downs across the entire Premier League and pick out the winners.

Here then, are the summer 2025 Premier League transfer window winners. Or you can head this way to point and laugh at the losers.

Liverpool

The deadline-day failure to sign Marc Guehi due to Crystal Palace’s deal for Igor falling through is a definite dollop of p*ss on the corn flakes, but come on.

Sure, Liverpool’s options do look slightly threadbare if they suffer any defensive injuries, but for goodness’ sake who says there’s going to be a defensive injury?

We’re very sure Guehi would have very quickly usurped Ibrahima Konate in Liverpool’s first-choice XI, but the key thing to remember is that his arrival wasn’t one that would have turned an okay window into a good one; it would have turned a stunning window into perhaps the best ever.

The array of attacking talent that Liverpool have got through the door to improve upon a team that really did stroll to the league title last year is outstanding.

They ended up not just signing Alexander Isak but also the player Newcastle had earmarked as his most plausible successor in Hugo Ekitike as well as completing a monumental early-summer deal for Florian Wirtz, who was the most sought-after halfway available talent in all of Europe.

And while the lack of centre-back cover is a concern, the arrivals of Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez – perhaps the Premier League’s standout left-back last season – are top-tier bits of business.

There are already signs that Liverpool’s football might be less controlled than last season’s title-winning machine produced, but they are almost certainly going to be even better to watch and on what we’ve seen so far quite possibly just as hard to stop.

It’s true that late goals have been needed to secure all their three straight wins to start this Premier League season, but that’s just all part of the fun.

It’s not always – or even often – true that the best team in the Premier League is also the best team to watch. This season’s Liverpool absolutely tick all the boxes.

Arsenal

Really could not in the end have done any more to correct the minor flaws that have left them sometimes narrowly but always undeniably and certainly frustratingly second best in each of the last three seasons.

The need for a Proper Striker has been obvious across that time and, while Viktor Gyokeres still has plenty to prove – scoring against Leeds while looking some way off it against Manchester United and Liverpool means he hasn’t yet quite beaten those surely nevertheless laughable ‘Championship standard’ allegations – his record in the last two years marks him out as precisely the type of natural relentless goalscorer Arsenal have lacked.

Eberechi Eze is close to the perfect signing, improving the one remaining conspicuous weak spot in Arsenal’s first-choice attack while also attaining instant cult-hero status for having pied Spurs right off, and even the Noni Madueke transfer that had some of Arsenal’s more dangerously online supporters losing their entire minds already looks like providing much-needed cover for the already-injured and persistently overworked Bukayo Saka.

Martin Zubimendi is as close to a perfect midfielder for the modern game as you can find, while Piero Hincapie for Jakub Kiwior is an upgrade in terms of general quality and versatility.

In short, Arsenal have strengthened where their most obvious weaknesses were to be found while also improving their squad depth in all outfield areas.

The big remaining question now is whether all that will be enough to keep pace with or reel in Liverpool.

Eberechi Eze

There probably isn’t a bad way to get the transfer you’ve dreamed about your whole career, back to your boyhood club to put the record straight after they let you go as a teenager.

But we’re pretty sure there is no better way of doing it than Eze’s. Not even the usually impermeable ‘Warra trophy’ could protect Spurs from the barbs this time.

Spurs recovered impressively enough over the closing days of the window, but hard to escape the notion they got played here and should have known it was all too possible it might go down like that. As one report put it, Spurs’ deal to sign Eze was ‘both almost done and constantly at the point of collapse’.

We’ll never know exactly how different things might have been had Kai Havertz not got injured, but we’re pretty sure any move to Spurs would have been dragged out far more than the Arsenal one turned out to be, given how apparently unmissable the Europa Conference League play-off game at Selhurst Park was right up until it wasn’t.

Chelsea

Easy to be thoroughly desensitized to Chelsea’s nonsense transfer windows these days, but this was a doozy.

A striking thing about this Chelsea transfer window, though, is that they actually appeared to set out at least in part to address actual footballing shortcomings in the squad rather than simply stockpiling football assets ahead of some apparent upcoming global shortage.

They bought not one striker but two! Just imagine that! Two actual strikers! And the early signs are already there that in Joao Pedro Chelsea have something they’ve lacked for a long time.

We’re already extremely excited about Estevao, while Jamie Gittens, Liam Delap and Facundo Buonanotte all point to Chelsea having a squad built to compete on all fronts now their European exertions are back on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and, with all due respect to their worthy adversaries from the Conference, slightly more taxing.

But in truth it is in the business of selling where Chelsea have truly excelled this summer, offering a stark reminder that ‘selling club’ isn’t and should never be a slur but rather a vital part of the business of any club, even one operating on as absurd a transfer level as Chelsea always do.

Chelsea have extracted transfer fees north of 20 million quid for no fewer than nine players this summer, and of those only Noni Madueke appeared anywhere close to appearing in first-team plans. And they got £50 million for him.

That’s before we even get on to the actual sorcery of securing a £14m loan fee for Nicolas Jackson.

Chelsea end the summer with a demonstrably stronger squad than that which began it and just about broken even on the whole enterprise, as well as winning a highly lucrative FIFA bauble along the way.

It’s a very, very handy summer’s work, is what we’re saying here. Although we’re going to need some convincing on Alejandro Garnacho.

Tottenham, just about, we think

Probably further from perfect than anyone else who makes it into the winners’ enclosure here and perhaps therefore the clearest reminder that this format really doesn’t lend itself to transfer windows, that ‘winning’ transfer windows is massively Warra Trophy behaviour anyway and that we hate our life.

But overall, all things considered, it’s still been a decent window for Spurs, especially given the sheer depths of banter nightmare to which it threatened to descend when vast number of eggs appeared to have been placed in that very precarious Eberechi Eze basket and further effort expended on an undeniably ambitious but always unlikely tilt for Savinho from Manchester City.

When the Eze Fiasco unfolded it was clear that Spurs needed two positives. One to cancel out the negative and another one just so they could have a positive.

It seemed wildly unlikely that could be achieved, but signing Xavi Simons and Randal Kolo Muani in the closing days of the window means Daniel Levy and his transfer brains trust have just about managed to fail upwards.

It’s worth remembering that Xavi Simons was the one Spurs initially wanted earlier in the window, only switching to more ‘achievable’ targets in Eze and Morgan Gibbs-White – we almost forgot that other Spurs summer clusterf*ck for a minute there – when it appeared Chelsea had the Dutchman’s signature secured.

Getting that deal done is a huge statement of intent, and would have been even without the unpleasantness Spurs endured before it. He’s precisely the sort of player Spurs fans – any fans, really – are predisposed to fall in love with, and the potential new headline act the Tottenham attack was crying out for now your Kanes and Sons are part of the history rather than present.

More to the point, as Spurs showed in front of Xavi on Saturday afternoon, his creative spark is one they desperately need in a squad that had lost Son and then its two most creative remaining players in Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison to injury. Xavi’s impact could be huge if a Bundesliga Tax can be avoided.

The failures of Spurs’ window are obvious enough. The inability and indeed apparent unwillingness to bring in another left-footed defender of any type is a bit of a worry. Spurs have left themselves with a hefty schedule and only three senior centre-backs and three senior full-backs to carry them through it, along with old man Davies who just keeps rolling along.

Djed Spence may already have made himself first-choice left-back in Thomas Frank’s eyes but he also remains the understudy on the other flank, while the past injury problems of Destiny Udogie, Micky van de Ven and new club captain Cristian Romero – his bumper new contract is another big plus for Spurs – leave Ben Davies uncomfortably close to a couple of Champions League starting spots in big 2025.

But in Mohammed Kudus, Joao Palhinha, Xavi and Kolo Muani, Spurs have made four big senior signings – albeit two on loan – that go straight towards improving the first XI rather than merely the squad, and we can’t really remember the last time Spurs did something like that. The squad itself has also been bolstered by the permanent arrivals of Mathys Tel and Kevin Danso.

Like Spurs’ start to the Premier League season, it’s not been perfect, but it’s been a lot better than it might have been.

Wilson Odobert and Mathys Tel

Spurs have performed significant and necessary surgery on their attacking options. They had work to do even before the departure of Son Heung-min and the long-term injuries to James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski highlighted their shortcomings further.

But while Spurs do now have the depth to occupy the attacking positions in Thomas Frank’s preferred 4-2-3-1 shape, there is no natural standout starter on the left flank. There are plenty that can and will play there – Kolo Muani, Brennan Johnson, Richarlison – but the two for whom it represents their actual favoured position are perhaps the two with the most to prove about belonging at this level.

It’s not ideal for Spurs, but it’s a huge opportunity for at least one of this pair.

Alexander Isak

Dear Lord, what a sad little life, Alex. You ruined Newcastle’s summer completely so you could move for more money but I hope now you spend it on getting some lessons in grace and decorum because you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck without any tyres on. You won, Alex. Take your six-year Liverpool contract and get off my property.

We can all look back with great fondness on those giddy early summer days when we all naively thought that Viktor Gyokeres to Arsenal was going to be the interminable saga.

Instead, it ended up being Isak’s move to Newcastle, one that went from being very unlikely to inevitable very quickly yet still took weeks and weeks to actually play out.

Even when Newcastle finally caved in the very early hours of deadline day it still wasn’t confirmed until long after the window had officially closed.

You can have your views on how Isak has gone about securing his move to Liverpool – and the grim truth is that today has been another reminder that as a player if you actually do want to get that dream move your chances are improved significantly if you’re a dick rather than a professional about it – but what a move it is for him.

Newcastle fans won’t see it this way and nor should they, but Isak was a genuinely elite world-class striker at a club that… isn’t those things. It was never going to last forever. Sure, signing that six-year contract was a rookie mistake of Charlie Kane proportions, forcing Isak to go fully nuclear to get the move, but in football we’re all guilty of massively overstating this kind of stuff.

Newcastle fans will care, obviously, but the idea – touted repeatedly on social media today – that Isak has irretrievably torched his reputation throughout the game is palpable nonsense.

And you know it’s nonsense because there are no Newcastle fans saying the same thing about how Yoane Wissa has treated Brentford. Every club has its place in the football transfer food-chain.

Sunderland

Whether it ends up working or not, you can’t knock them for trying. Sunderland weren’t really ready for promotion when it happened at the end of last season. They finished a full 24 points behind their fellow promoted clubs – clubs who now provide the theoretically weakest opposition in the rarefied air they now occupy.

Other promoted clubs of recent vintage faced with such a predicament have effectively given the whole thing up as a bad job before a ball is kicked. Sunderland have gone out and bought a new team to see where it takes them.

And it’s not just that they’ve signed loads of players. Anyone can do that, in theory. It’s the range of players we like. There’s big money signings, there’s exciting high-ceilinged youngsters, there’s gnarled wily veterans who’ve seen it all before, there’s canny big-six loan swoops.

All with the added bonus that unlike Leeds and Burnley their summer recruitment drive didn’t run out of puff at the last, with the Black Cats striking a late deal to bring Brian Brobbey to the Barclays, to the delight of absolutely everyone old enough to remember mid-90s Saturday evening light entertainment. Which, unfortunately for everyone else, is almost all journalists and commentators.

Everyone signed by Brighton

Congratulations on your upcoming move to Chelsea in 2027.

Ben Chilwell

Sometimes a transfer comes along that just restores your faith in this great and beautiful game, a transfer that reminds you of just why you fell in love with the sport in the first place.

And the sight of Ben Chilwell after a second summer in the Chelsea Bomb Squad managing at the last minute to snag a dream move to their sister club Strasbourg is a right cockle-warmer and no mistake.

Don’t know about you, but we’re off to a celebrate with a foaming pint of BlueCo.

Winners & Losers Alexander Isak