Signing football players is an inexact science and it would be unreasonable to expect every big-money purchase to work out well.
However, there are good reasons why some deals prove to offer better value than others, and the insipid performances of Frenkie de Jong and Antoine Griezmann for Barcelona in Sunday night’s Clasico loss perfectly illustrated that when you splash the cash, it’s better to know why you are doing so.
Here we take a look at the best and worst value big-money transfers over recent years in La Liga and the Premier League, the world’s two most financially powerful competitions.
And the bottom line? If you are prepared to splash top dollar on top talent, it’s preferable to have a plan in place which will allow the new investment to excel. Not too complicated, is it?
Click here to read about the worst value big-money transfers
BEST VALUE
4-4-2 – Alisson; Dani Alves, Virgil van Dijk, Inigo Martinez, Ferland Mendy; Kevin de Bruyne, Rodri, Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo; Luis Suarez, Mohamed Salah
Liverpool were clearly already a very good team in the summer of 2018, having just reached the Champions League Final. However, that showpiece occasion also starkly revealed the Reds’ biggest weakness as they were defeated by Real Madrid after a couple of catastrophic errors by their now sadly infamous goalkeeper, Loris Karius.
It was blindingly obvious that a new shot-stopper was needed, and Jurgen Klopp looked no further than the man who had attempted to block his team’s path in the previous round.
Alisson was snatched away from Roma to briefly become the world’s most expensive keeper, immediately proved himself to be the commanding and reliable presence so badly needed, and 12 months later the Merseysiders returned to European football’s biggest game…and won it.
When Barcelona signed Dani Alves from Sevilla in 2008, they nearly doubled the highest price ever paid for a right-back (the deal cost €35m, whereas the previous record was the €20m Chelsea paid Porto for Paulo Ferreira in 2004).
And questions were asked why, with a team already containing Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi, was there a need for such an expensive full-back? But Alves soon set the template not only for his position but also for the money clubs were prepared to spend, to the extent that financial deals for defenders can now be split into the pre- and post-Alves eras.
Virgil van Dijk’s £80m move from Southampton to Liverpool in the summer of 2017 shocked many observers. Okay, he’s good, they complained, but why on earth would you pay that much for a defender?
Over the last couple of years, van Dijk has answered that question tenfold by providing his team with an almost unbeatable anchor, laying the foundations for the forward line to play with the confidence that if they lose the ball, it will soon enough be coming back their way.
Yes, van Dijk was probably overpriced at the time. But he was also desperately needed, and no Liverpool fans now will be at all upset that their club perhaps paid a few more million than they needed to.
Athletic Club de Bilbao’s €32m swoop for Inigo Martinez from Real Sociedad in the summer of 2018 might not have made too many headlines globally, but it was a significant transfer as he became not only Athletic’s record signing but also the most expensive back ever bought by a Spanish club (a status since overtaken).
That confirmed Athletic’s place in the upper echelons of La Liga’s hierarchy, especially as they robbed local rivals La Real of a key homegrown player. And he has performed extremely well, immediately becoming a lynchpin for one of the league’s best defences.
When a legend approaches his sell-by date, it can be difficult to act decisively. And at Real Madrid, Marcelo is such a popular figure that signing someone else to replace him could be seen as callous. But last summer’s acquisition of Ferland Mendy from Lyon was a masterstroke, especially in the way he has been gradually integrated while also allowing Marcelo to still receive significant playing time (he started last weekend’s Clasico, for example).
Mendy has done more than enough to show his worth for seasons to come, but the gradual integration as Marcelo slowly steps aside is being perfectly handled by Zinedine Zidane.
Spending £70m on a youngster who had spent just one season with Atletico Madrid after being re-signed from Villarreal seemed like a risk, but after some early teething problems Manchester City’s ambitious move for Rodri is already starting to look like a bargain.
This is a great example of a transfer being carefully and clearly planned: City needed a long-term replacement for Fernandinho, had watched Rodri from his youth and knew he would fit in. And when he set a new Premier League passing record last month, it looked very much like he is ready to become a key man for years to come.
In the summer of 2012, Luka Modric was already well established as a top Premier League player. But he was approaching 27 years old, had barely played in the Champions League and his potential to truly become one of the world’s best midfielders was uncertain.
Yet Real Madrid, having played against him earlier that season, were confident enough to make him – at the time – an expensive purchase at €35m. Eight years, 300 appearances, 16 trophies and a Ballon d’Or later, it doesn’t look like such a bad purchase.
After seeing Kevin de Bruyne struggle to make an impression during a brief spell with Chelsea, paying £55m just a year after he left Stamford Bridge for a third of that fee to make the young Belgian the second-most expensive player in British history seemed reckless beyond belief.
But Manchester City knew what they were doing, and de Bruyne has made the doubters eat their words during his five seasons at the Etihad Stadium. His recent Champions League performance at Real Madrid showed that de Bruyne is one of the world’s finest attacking players, and his fee now looks like a bargain.
Some transfers have the effect of changing the shape of the market for many years to come. These are the deals which appear to be so exorbitantly priced they almost appeared inconceivable before they actually happened, Neymar’s move to Paris Saint-Germain being the most recent example.
Ten years earlier, Real Madrid didn’t just break the world transfer record to land Cristiano Ronaldo, they absolutely smashed it. The £80 million they paid to prise the Portuguese poseur away from Manchester United, however, was absolutely worth it because Ronaldo was not just wildly more expensive than any other player…he was also wildly more productive than any other player (bar the obvious one). From Real Madrid’s perspective, this deal was a rare case of paying whatever it took. Because he was worth it.
Luis Suarez was a divisive figure when Barcelona splashed £65m to bring the Uruguayan to Spain from Liverpool in 2014.
Yes, he was one of the best strikers in the world. But he was already 27 years old and was serving a long suspension after biting Giorgio Chiellini during that summer’s World Cup. A year later, though, Suarez had won the treble after combining brilliantly with Lionel Messi and Neymar to create arguably the most devastating strike force in history.
And although he has remained a fiery competitor, he has never ‘crossed the line’ in the manner that blighted his early career, showing that a leopard can sometimes change its spots.
Similar to de Bruyne, it’s fair to say that Mohamed Salah was far less than a guaranteed world-class talent when Liverpool broke their transfer record to sign the Egyptian in the summer of 2017.
Salah had flopped at Chelsea and been mediocre for Fiorentina, and despite a good couple of seasons with Roma he didn’t exactly look like the kind of performer to take Liverpool to the next level. But that’s exactly what he proved to be, becoming one of the most popular players to have pulled on the famous red shirt and spearheading the club’s return to glory.
