Why big clubs keep getting transfers wrong

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On July 23, 2025, Liverpool splashed the cash on a new striker, signing Hugo Ekitike from Frankfurt for £82 million. A few months later, they broke the all-time Premier League transfer fee to bring in Florian Wirtz. A few weeks later, they broke that record again, bringing Alexander Isak in from Newcastle.

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That same day, Randal Kolo Muani joined Tottenham on loan from Paris-Saint-Germain. Spurs had already purchased attacking reinforcements in Xavi Simons, Mohammed Kudus, and Mathys Tel, and brought in a new coach to manage them all.

Of those four players, only one had proven Premier League experience. All others had been rejected by bigger clubs.

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Collectively, those four players have now accumulated just six Premier League goals thus far in 2025-26. Kolo Muani himself might have only come on loan, but you’d simply expect more than 0 league goals for a player who once commanded a near £100 million fee himself.

For the others, that’s over £100 million spent on just six goals in 22 matches.

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As for Liverpool, Ekitike’s worked. He’s netted eight. Double the total goal contributions (goals + assists) of both Wirtz (4) and Isak (3). For nearly £300 million, I’d expect them to have all won the Ballon d’Or by now.

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On slightly better policies, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Newcastle all splashed the cash on new strikers in the same window; each bringing in a new £70 million striker to be their saviour in front of goal.

And the precedent had been set years prior. Antony, Nicolas Pepe, and Darwin Nunez remain amongst the most expensive signings ever. None of them worked.

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And what just about all of these players have in common is one thing: They came from outside the Premier League, and commanded fees well above what any football club should ever pay for one player.

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When we look at most of the smart and sensible transfer decisions made over the past few seasons, the opposite often runs true. Alexis Mac Allister was a brilliant ball player for Brighton, proven at Premier League level in several slots, and commanded a cheap fee for a club the size of Liverpool.

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N’Golo Kante commanded only a £32 million fee after winning the Premier League with Leicester and firmly establishing himself as one of the best midfielders the league had ever seen.

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Virgil Van Dijk had a few years to establish himself at Southampton before joining Liverpool. Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, and Frank Lampard all established themselves as proven Premier League talent before becoming Premier League legends.

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It’s so rare that a player commands the fee of a Hugo Ekitiké and actually works in the Premier League. And even if it works in those rare cases like Liverpool’s new #9, it’s an absurd amount of money to spend on one player if you aren’t absolutely confident that they are one of the two or three best in the world in their position.

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When it’s worked, more often, it’s been with a proven Premier League star, who can already claim to be in that conversation. Moisés Caicedo leaving Brighton for Chelsea. Declan Rice leaving West Ham for Arsenal. Virgil leaving the Saints for the Reds.

More often, you can get an instant success with a midfielder, defender, or goalkeeper. Rodri, Ruben Dias, Alisson… all great examples. But it’s so risky to sign attacking talent with that big of a price tag. The expectation on them to score and assist can simply never live up to expectation. Even if Isak scored 30 goals this season, you’d have to ask, isn’t £125 million an awful lot of money?

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To football clubs, £100 million might no longer seem like an insane amount of money. They seem to have money to spare.

But here’s why it’s insane. And herein lies the reason why clubs like Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth will always have better transfer strategies.

Think of how many proven Premier League players you could sign for that total sum of £100-125 million.

For that much money, you could get an entire first eleven of proven Premier League quality.

When you get into the stage of the season where you’re playing Christmas fixtures, cup matches, Champions League showdowns, etc., it’s rotational talent that these clubs often start to miss. It’s the hole that Chelsea and United found themselves in this winter, leading to the subsequent sackings of both managers.

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When you spend £100 million on one player…even £60-80 million, you simply leave less room in the transfer budget to fill in the gaps elsewhere. You then have to make up entire benches of unproven talent ~ hungry to prove something, but lacking the experience and the assurance so often needed late in games.

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You then have to switch Szoboszlai to full-back. You have to persistently count on the same players who can’t find the back of the net. You have to change the way the team can play.

For £70 million, why not invest in seven players, instead of one? Why not do a Brighton and pick up six young players from outside the Prem, knowing three of them might work, three of them can be loaned out, and none of them will cost you any sense of risk if they fail altogether. This is the approach that found Caicedo, Mac Allister, Mitoma, and more.

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Why not take Welbeck, Watkins or Calvert-Lewin, knowing that they’re guaranteed to score goals in the top flight? Is it worth spending £60-80 million on a striker that is yet to play in the Prem, when several others have already proven themselves and can be persuaded for cheaper?

It might not be, given that many of those names have double what Šeško and Gyokeres have offered so far. Both have been fine. But both have massively underperformed the weight of expectation from the fee. If you can get the same goal output out of defensive midfielders like Declan Rice and Casemiro, something’s amiss.

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This is where Tottenham have turned to dust this season.

They have a host of new names across their front-line. None of them work in harmony with one another. Almost all of them are unproven in the Premier League. Many of them came with hefty fees after already not working for a bigger club.

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You’re then left with a bunch of B- names making up the rest of the team, because all the money’s been spent on two to four underperforming stars. I look around the remainder of the bottom half of the Premier League table, and see loads of proven quality.

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I see Elliot Anderson, Adam Wharton, Anton Stach, Morgan Gibbs-White, Jordan Pickford, Lewis Dunk, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Antonee Robinson, Jarrod Bowen, James Garner, Harry Wilson, Joachim Andersen, Tomáš Souček, the list can continue! All of these players would immediately improve Tottenham. All, apart from Anderson, would command tiny fees by comparison. For that matter, they’d have a heart in fighting for a club that want to challenge for a spot in the Champions League.

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After arriving this week, Conor Gallagher is immediately one of their best players. He represents the type of player that Spurs need to continue prioritizing with their transfer business.

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Proven Premier League quality that doesn’t break the bank. Unfortunately, when you have to build a team from scratch, it rarely works. And that’s what Spurs have found with their attack this season. It’s what Man United found when all of their best players were out at the same time. And in doing this well, it’s what has slowly made Arsenal into the best team in the country. Smart, incremental changes for relatively cheap year after year.

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And if a club like Tottenham, Liverpool or Arsenal want to spend such fees on stars, these are the questions I would ask:

1. 100 million+ -> Is this one of the best ten players in the world of football? Is it someone that is at least one of the two or three best in their position? If not, is it someone who can feasibly develop into that?

If no, buy five to ten players for the price of one.

❌ Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak
✅ Declan Rice, Moises Caicedo

2. 80-100 million -> Is this one of the fifty best players in the world? Is it someone who comfortably commands their position as one of the best five or so?

If no, buy five to six players for the price of one.

❌ Darwin Nunez, Antony
✅ Virgil Van Dijk, Josko Gvardiol

3. 60-80 million -> Is this even one of the top one-hundred best players in the world? Are they already one of the very best in their position (at least five through ten?).

If no, spend elsewhere. Buy cheap, sell high.

❌ Rasmus Højlund, Nicolas Pepe, Xavi Simons, Leny Yoro
✅ Rodri, Erling Haaland, Ruben Dias, Alisson, Kevin de Bruyne, Bruno Fernandes

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I can’t help but feel that if Manchester United asked themselves these questions, they wouldn’t have spent nearly the same amount of money on Leny Yoro as they did on Bruno Fernandes.

Money might not matter to these big clubs anymore. But positioning in the table most certainly does. And it’s been proven over and over that spending £100 million (even £60 million) on one player can only get you so far. You need an entire squad of talent to win the Premier League, and you need to spread the budget around to every position.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!