Solanke and Neto next: Ranking all 30 previous £40m-plus intra-Premier League transfers, with Palmer 7)

Dominic Solanke and Amadou Onana have traded Premier League clubs and Pedro Neto may be next. They will hope to be more Virgil van Dijk than Kalvin Phillips.

Solanke, Onana and Max Kilman have all transferred within the Premier League for considerable sums this summer, with Pedro Neto among the others who could still do so.

But how have previous such moves worked out for the players involved? We’ve ranked every previous such move between Premier League clubs and set an entirely arbitrary ‘big-money’ benchmark of £40m and then inevitably had to guess in the margins because undisclosed fees are the scourge of the industry and more importantly this kind of feature.

Ultimately, though, this doesn’t matter too much here because we’re ranking the success of the move rather than the size of the fee, which is but one small factor in our very scientific (ahem) calculations and we have to cut things off somewhere. Got it? Grand, let’s crack on.

30) Gylfi Sigurdsson (Swansea to Everton, August 2017, £45m)
Was quite good but never really £45m good for Everton and then .

29) Matheus Nunes (Wolves to Manchester City, September 2023, £53m)
Not much is said about how catastrophic a signing Nunes has been for Manchester City, who can absorb that kind of failure like few other clubs. The Portuguese started 14 games in his debut season and those opponents tell a story: Nottingham Forest, Wolves, Everton (twice), Burnley, Bournemouth, Luton (twice), Red Star (twice), Young Boys (twice), Copenhagen and Urawa Reds.

MORE TRANSFER FEATURES FROM F365
👉 Twenty biggest transfers in the world in 2024 summer transfer window
👉 Aston Villa lead Europe’s top 10 spenders this summer as Chelsea move after latest random buy

28) Wesley Fofana (Leicester to Chelsea, August 2022, £70m)
Through little to no fault of his own, Fofana has been a dreadfully disappointing Chelsea signing. The centre-half is stuck on 20 appearances because of a couple of serious knee injuries. His last Chelsea start came alongside Trevoh Chalobah, with Cesar Azpilicueta on his right and Kepa Arrizabalaga behind him. So yeah.

27) Kalvin Phillips (Leeds to Manchester City, July 2022, £42m)
“I spoke to quite a few of the lads about their first season at City and how difficult they found it. They said exactly the same thing, saying it takes at least 12 months for somebody to really understand what the manager wants you to do, the way he wants you to play and how he wants you to work.”

While quite a few of the lads kicked on thereafter, Phillips regressed from an already low point after his debut season. He played a handful of games in 2023/24, went on a disastrous loan to West Ham, lost his England place and has returned to the Etihad as a makeshift centre-half in pre-season because everyone else is on holiday.

“He’s a central midfielder, but Kalvin likes to see the game in front of him – when he’s in the middle surrounded by players, he struggles a little bit,” says Pep Guardiola. It doesn’t sound very Rodri.

26) Marc Cucurella (Brighton to Chelsea, August 2022, £55m)
In fairness to Chelsea, they were not alone in bidding for Brighton’s Player of the Season during the summer of 2022. They were alone in going as high as £62m, with Manchester City offering around half that before realising the futility of trying to haggle with the Seagulls.

For a long old while it seemed as though Brighton had fleeced another customer and City had walked away from yet another target to leave one of their rivals with buyer’s remorse. But Cucurella showed positive signs towards the end of Mauricio Pochettino’s managerial reign and carried that into a European Championship summer in which he was crucial for dominant winners Spain.

25) Mason Mount (Chelsea to Manchester United, July 2023, £55m)
The sense that Manchester United might have overpaid for a player Chelsea were desperate to sell for pure profit, who only had a year remaining on his contract, asked questions of the club’s recruitment which Mount struggled to answer because he could start just eight games in 2023/24 due to injury.

24) Richarlison (Everton to Tottenham, July 2022, £50m)
Spent a lot of his early time in north London celebrating subsequently disallowed goals by getting booked for taking his shirt off. Finally mastered the art of scoring legitimate goals without then partially undressing and for a time became really quite effective, but injuries and personal struggles have made it tough for a player who should be praised for rejecting the Saudi millions to continue pursuing both his Tottenham and Brazil dream.

23) Raheem Sterling (Manchester City to Chelsea, July 2022, £47.5m)
It has been an imperfect storm of managerial upheaval, indifferent form and inconsistent fitness for Sterling, who knows scoring nine goals and setting up four as one of Chelsea’s senior players after joining for up to £50m represented “one of the lowest points in my career”. Ten goals and eight assists in 2023/24 was an improvement but hardly substantial. It has been a chastening experience after all the plain sailing he managed with Manchester City.

22) Moises Caicedo (Brighton to Chelsea, August 2023, £100m)
The hope and indeed expectation will be that Caicedo can build on the promise he showed towards the end of his debut season at Chelsea, when glimpses of his possible final £115m valuation could be spotted. The absurd nature of that transfer and his current club means he will be judged against that fee, and thus for some only him becoming the single greatest midfielder in the world would be good enough.

It does not feel particularly likely in these conditions but Caicedo is finally at least headed in the right direction.

21) Brennan Johnson (Nottingham Forest to Tottenham, September 2023, £47.5m)
Five goals and ten assists was a fine return for a player making the step up from being one of his boyhood club’s best players to a squad role for a team competing for European qualification. It was huge money considering Johnson will never be a consistent starter but it is harsh to blame him for inflation or football club owners being football club owners.

20) Romelu Lukaku (Everton to Manchester United, July 2017, £75m)
Now only his second most disastrous and eye-wateringly expensive move to a Premier League club so that’s… something. Lukaku’s numbers at United really weren’t bad – especially in light of his struggles at Chelsea – but he never truly seemed settled at Old Trafford, especially once Jose Mourinho had made way for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Managed 16 Premier League goals in his first season and 12 in his second with United which at the time, and in the context of a 25-goal season for Everton that prompted United to make their expensive move, seemed disappointing. With 20-20 hindsight, the unmitigated disaster of his Chelsea return and the precision with which he has burned his bridges everywhere else, it looks like a golden age.

MORE TRANSFER FEATURES FROM F365
👉 Twenty biggest transfers in the world in 2024 summer transfer window
👉 Aston Villa lead Europe’s top 10 spenders this summer as Chelsea move after latest random buy

19) Harry Maguire (Leicester to Manchester United, August 2019, £80m)
Signed in the misguided belief that simply making any mid-table Premier League centre-half the most expensive defender in world football transforms both that player into an elite talent and that club into a ruthless winning machine, Manchester United spent almost an entire summer trying to figure out how to get Leicester to come down from their £80m demands before realising it was easier to just meet them.

Maguire was given the armband within months and showed flashes of club excellence in between regular international tournament dominance, but he was never The Guy and once Manchester United employed an actual adult human as manager, the writing was on the slab. Erik ten Hag signed the smaller but, crucially, better Lisandro Martinez and even put Luke Shaw ahead in the centre-half queue. But Maguire resisted the West Ham temptation and proved his worth during an Old Trafford injury crisis he eventually succumbed to.

18) Ben Chilwell (Leicester to Chelsea, August 2020, £45m)
That Chilwell is one of the longest-serving players in the entire Chelsea squad – he joined in August 2020 – should weigh in his favour but really it acts against him. The vice-captain has authority and sway in theory but it is easy to lose him in the infernal shuffle of perpetual new signings and managers.

The injury factor cannot be ignored either; in his four seasons at Chelsea he has started just 83 games in all competitions, with 39 of those coming in his Champions League-winning first campaign. Chilwell has played more games for the Blues under Thomas Tuchel than with any other coach and that does not bode well.

17) Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Crystal Palace to Manchester United, June 2019, £45m)
It is to the immense credit of Wan-Bissaka that he has managed to salvage a Manchester United career which looked summarily lost during The Dark Timeline. The right-back lost his way and his place under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick and Ten Hag but has fought to improve his all-round game and become a viable first-team option for the previously unconvinced Dutchman.

There remains a vast discrepancy between Wan-Bissaka’s phenomenal one-v-one defending and his lacklustre impact going forward, and he still cannot defend his back post at crosses, but that the 25-year-old is still even there at all is testament to his character and ability. If anything, so too is joining West Ham in their exciting post-Moyes binge.

16) Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea, January 2011, £50m)
One from the archives here and a reminder of how the balance of power within the so-called self-appointed Sky Big Six has shifted over the decade and a half. Chelsea back then were able to bully Liverpool into selling them their beloved star striker who had scored 65 often wonderful goals in 102 usually brilliant Premier League appearances. Now they just bully them by signing all their targets at inflated prices while still being a fair bit worse.

Torres managed only 20 goals in 110 games for Chelsea, but did prompt Gary Neville’s infamous goalgasm as Chelsea beat Barcelona en route to their 2012 Champions League triumph. Also won the FA Cup and Europa League in his time with Chelsea, having won nothing at Liverpool which probably tells us a great deal about all sorts of things if we want it to.

15) Nemanja Matic (Chelsea to Manchester United, July 2017, £40m)
A dependably solid and reliable operator who is seemingly at his happiest when working with Mourinho. Each to their own. Played nearly 200 games for United throughout their trophyless run and we would challenge you to remember a single one of those appearances for either good or ill.

14) Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City to Arsenal, July 2022, £45m)
Not content to play second fiddle to the incoming Erling Haaland at Manchester City, Jesus instead sought the open arms and guaranteed minutes of Mikel Arteta. And at various stages that seemed like an inspired decision by all but those at the Etihad as the Brazilian provided the platform for a surprise title challenge.

Jesus scored 11 goals and assisted seven in his debut season with the Gunners, even after suffering a knee injury which robbed him of a proper go at the World Cup. But the forward was powerless to keep Arsenal on track after William Saliba was sidelined, with his former employers applying salt to Jesus’ wound by sauntering to the Treble.

Injuries remain a problem for Jesus and it already feels a little as though Arsenal have outgrown him in the same way Manchester City did.

13) Kai Havertz (Chelsea to Arsenal, June 2023, £65m)
Quite obviously defied the critics – basically anyone not named Arteta or Edu – who questioned both the fee and Arsenal’s need for a player like Havertz – to become an important part of an established title-challenging side.

It still feels a bit weird that Arsenal identified him as the key to the next stage in their development, and that Chelsea managed to make a profit on a player they no longer wanted, but Havertz matched his personal best return for goals and assists in his first season in north London so fair enough.

12) Diogo Jota (Wolves to Liverpool, September 2020, £41m)
Liverpool at their recruitment peak always identified players at mid-table teams or lower who were perhaps seemingly a little underwhelming but had the underlying numbers and character to substantially improve their game and output.

Jota is a prime example: a goal contribution every 148.6 minutes for Wolves has become one every 112.6 minutes at Anfield.

11) Jack Grealish (Aston Villa to Manchester City, August 2021, £100m)
After the aforementioned usual Guardiola growing pains came an explosion of both brilliance and public adulation for Grealish, then the very possibly completely unique Difficult Third Pep Year.

After winning the Premier League title in 2022, he took a pot shot at Miguel Almiron. With the Treble in hand a year later, he was either a turkey or a pigeon whose thirst needed to be quenched. It was not exactly clear.

What was blindingly obvious was the talent of Grealish, shining through particularly in the second half of the 2022/23 season after the World Cup, helping inspire some Manchester City trophies. Jeremy Doku and some fitness issues set the former Aston Villa forward back in 2023/24 but there is hope he can recover.

10) Declan Rice (West Ham to Arsenal, August 2023, £100m)
For Rice as much as anyone there is scope to move much further up/down this list. An excellent debut Arsenal season in which he quite clearly improved both his own personal performance levels but also raised the floor and ceiling of an already formidable team has laid the groundwork for future progress.

He will know the price essentially dictates that Arsenal must at some point win silverware during his tenure as one of Arteta’s pillars, lest he be forever enshrined as an expensive flop. But Rice and the Gunners are very much on the right track, albeit rather foolishly timing their rise at a time Guardiola is at his most bald.

9) Ben White (Brighton to Arsenal, July 2021, £50m)
That debut against Brentford feels an awful long time ago. White has grown into the dependable, versatile and smooth defender Arsenal knew they had signed soon thereafter, and the constant comparisons with Raphael Varane soon subsided.

Some people still think it is even vaguely relevant that he didn’t watch football growing up and doesn’t engage with it in his spare time, and hopefully Steve Holland is enjoying his time off with Gareth Southgate.

8) Nathan Ake (Bournemouth to Manchester City, August 2020, £41m)
The lesson: even when Manchester City have so clearly, undeniably, irrefutably got it wrong, they’ve probably still got it right. When Ake made 29 starts in his first two seasons at the Etihad, it looked like a considerable transfer misstep. Pricing Chelsea out of signing him – which sounds theoretically impossible but still – felt like doubling down on the mistake. But then Guardiola decided the best full-backs are actually big old centre-halves and Ake became one of the best defenders in the country again, signing a lovely new contract in celebration of a Treble he helped as much as anyone to deliver.

7) Cole Palmer (Manchester City to Chelsea, September 2023, £40m)
The Chelsea Clearlake deal which ostensibly made the least sense – £40m on a kid with 19 Premier League appearances who Manchester City were happy to let go – has been by far the most successful.

It is laughable how clear Palmer is in that regard. In 33 league games for Chelsea the European Championship final scorer already has as many combined goals and assists. His sale when the Blues have fully amortised his fee over a 427-year contract and they can book some pure profit to afford an obscure South American teenager will be tough to take.

6) Anthony Gordon (Everton to Newcastle, January 2023, £40m)
Blessed with enough self-belief to realise his horse had not bolted when Chelsea finally walked away after Everton would not relent at £60m, Gordon scored a single goal between the end of the summer 2022 transfer window and the start of the 2023 winter iteration, then stopped rocking up for training, yet still only saw his valuation drop a little.

Newcastle seemed to have completely taken leave of their senses when Gordon went 16 games with a single goal and no assists. But his explosion into a remarkably effective proponent of exciting and direct wing play, relentless pressing and constant housery has entirely justified the initial outlay and more.

5) John Stones (Everton to Manchester City, August 2016, £47.5m)
A fee that, at the time, made him the most expensive English defender in history and whose departure caused ructions from Everton fans enraged at the sheer modern football disgrace of a player moving to a bigger and better club because money had changed hands, unlike their own acquisition of Stones from Barnsley three years earlier which was quite different actually because reasons.

Stones initially struggled to adapt to life at City and admitted to disappointment after his first season at the Etihad, both with his own performances and a general lack of silverware. Both of those issues have been addressed in subsequent years, with a title-winning run of genuine excellence alongside Ruben Dias in 2020/21 beaten only by the realisation of his true Beckenbauer form in 2022/23.

MORE TRANSFER FEATURES FROM F365
👉 Twenty biggest transfers in the world in 2024 summer transfer window
👉 Aston Villa lead Europe’s top 10 spenders this summer as Chelsea move after latest random buy

4) Riyad Mahrez (Leicester to Manchester City, July 2018, £60m)
Already assured of his place in Premier League folklore for his vital goalscoring and creating role in The Leicester Fairytale, nothing Mahrez could have ever done with City would have matched that. But 11 trophies, 78 goals and 59 assists in five seasons was a pretty solid effort.

That his departure brought in £30m was a fortunate by product of the market, and the fact he departed England as soon as his former Foxes were relegated rounded that circle off nicely.

3) Kyle Walker (Tottenham to Manchester City, July 2017, £50m)
Hard to quite fathom now, but Guardiola’s first Manchester City team ended up below Tottenham in the 2016/17 league table. One reason why that happened then and hasn’t really looked like doing so since was Kyle Walker, whose £50m move to City that summer looked at the time like paying over the odds for a right-back, albeit a really good one.

Fair enough, because City needed a right-back and could afford to do it; it felt like a transfer deal that suited all parties. Still does looking back with seven years’ hindsight really, but just without the £50m seeming in any way an over-the-top sum for a crucial figure in six Premier League title-winning campaigns and a Treble season.

2) Raheem Sterling (Liverpool to Manchester City, July 2015, £44m)
The last player to transfer between Liverpool and Manchester City timed the jump brilliantly. There was widespread shock and horror among the Red-tinted punditocracy when Sterling refused to sign a new contract to help push through a big-money move to the Etihad, but he assessed the trajectories perfectly to adorn his cabinet with winner’s medals.

The acrimony around it all probably played a larger part than most care to acknowledge in some of the frankly disgusting media coverage to which Sterling has often been so pointedly subjected. And even with all Liverpool’s eventual improvement long after he left, it’s still hard to argue that Sterling made the wrong decision – even if he might have second thoughts about the precise way he went about achieving it.

Speaking of regret, he might just look back and wonder what could have been if he’d stuck it out behind Haaland for a season. Manchester City won the Treble as soon as he left, while Sterling endured the worst season of his career at Chelsea.

1) Virgil van Dijk (Southampton to Liverpool, January 2018, £75m)
Manchester City dominate the upper reaches of this list but they might have to permanently concede top spot to Liverpool thanks to their expensive but transformative acquisition of Virgil van Dijk more than six years ago.

The Dutchman’s impact was instant. Back in the first half of the 2017/18 season, Liverpool were an excellent and entertaining but defensively vulnerable side. Seemingly overnight, that problem was solved by Van Dijk who went on to prove himself the league’s pre-eminent defender.

Even with an understandable drop-off since due to age, injury and his club’s own inconsistency, he remains one of the best in the country and has even become captain at Anfield. They will dread trying to replace him.