The teams who have had the best transfer windows to date - including Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.
There may still be three weeks of the summer transfer window left to run, but plenty of patterns have emerged – and while several sides are struggling to do the business they want, others seem to be building something rather special ahead of the new Premier League season.
Five teams, in particular, appear to have done some good (if often rather expensive) business and may be setting themselves up for success. From free-spending sides battling for the title to a newly-promoted team giving themselves every chance of upsetting the odds, these are our picks for the real winners of the window so far.
Liverpool
Let’s start at the top – having kept the purse strings relatively tight for the past few seasons, the reigning champions have rather suddenly decided to embark on a major rebuild, and have spared no expense in the process.
In signing Florian Wirtz, they have may have broken the bank but have also added one of the most dangerous attacking midfielders in Europe, Hugo Ekitike could soon prove to be a major upgrade on the consistently inconsistent, Saudi-bound Darwin Núñez, Milos Kerkez is a growing force at left-back and Jeremie Frimpong’s form at Bayer Leverkusen suggests that he’s the best possible replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Alexander-Arnold’s departure represents the only major misstep Liverpool have made in their business, but in getting £10m out of Real Madrid just to let him leave in time for the Club World Cup, they softened the blow to a certain degree – and at least they kept hold of Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk when they could so easily have left as well.
Things may yet get better, too. Heaven only knows whether they will make a second bid for Alexander Isak, but a deal for Marc Guéhi remains firmly on the cards and while they would prefer not to have sold Luis Díaz, the cash they’ve earned from his move to Bayern Munich and Darwin’s transfer to Al-Hilal is helping to fund upgrades elsewhere.
Liverpool’s squad already looked good – now it looks even stronger, with the likelihood of further high-end additions. It’s just such an appalling shame that what should have been a summer of overwhelming positive feeling has also seen such terrible tragedy. No title win and no signings will ever make up for the loss of the dearly-missed Diogo Jota.
Chelsea
Not so very long ago, Chelsea’s transfer business was a byword for chaos, overspending and mismanagement. Now, the picture looks rather different, and Enzo Maresca’s squad is slowly starting to look considerably more coherent.
The Club World Cup victory underlined the potential impact of new arrivals such as João Pedro and Liam Delap, the supremely-talented Xavi Simons seems to be on his way, and Jorrel Hato, Jamie Gittens and Estevão Willian (admittedly signed before the summer but only arriving now) are all gifted enough to conceivably be the bedrock of a winning team which lasts for years.
Some would argue that, in building such a youthful side, they will lack the experience required to challenge for the title and that’s likely true for the coming season, but after years of scattershot squad building there is a sense of something resembling a unified vision.
They’ve also done a good job with their outgoings, too. They could scarcely have made much more money back from the sale of some of their past mistakes such as João Félix and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and turned a clear profit on the likes of Djordje Petrović and Noni Madueke, even if selling the latter to a direct rival could easily come back to bite them. All in, they’ve accumulated over £200m from player sales already this summer.
That’s one slightly dubious decision, and they still need to finish clearing out the bomb squad, but Chelsea finally seem to be making decisions that make financial sense – and perhaps footballing sense, too. Not a perfect window, but a big step in the right direction.
Nottingham Forest
Sometimes, who you keep is just as important as who you buy – and as it stands, Forest have done a remarkably good job at keeping the band together, something many teams struggle with in the wake of a season of over-achievement.
Yes, they lost Anthony Elanga to Newcastle United, but they got an impressive £55m for him and Dan Ndoye arrives as a potentially excellent replacement for around £20m less. The Forest which signed dozens of seeming random players and invited their managers to make what they could of it appears to be a thing of the past.
Even more importantly, they have kept hold of Morgan Gibbs-White (perhaps against the player’s will, judging by the almost hostage-situation vibes of the video in which he announced his new contract, but still), rebuffed interest in Murillo, and will head into the new campaign with much the same side as they had before with a handful of potential upgrades.
They still need to get one or two of those deals over the line but if they sign Douglas Luiz and get him back to his best form and can find a striker to share the load with an ageing Chris Wood, there’s no obvious reason that they should fail to maintain their momentum and challenge for European places again. Who would have thought a couple of years ago that Forest would ever look efficient and focused in a transfer window?
Arsenal
The Premier League’s perennial bridesmaids have done just about everything they could have to finally snap their long run without a league title this summer – with the long-awaited arrival of a genuine goal-scoring number nine perhaps the deal which could tip the scales in their favour at last.
Arsenal had to be patient in their pursuit of Viktor Gyökeres but got there in the end, and now have a striker who’s scoring record stands up against the likes of Erling Haaland. That, for years, has looked like the missing piece of the puzzle. Now we will finally find out.
Throw in a deal for Martín Zubimendi, an exceptional midfielder, some defensive depth in Cristhian Mosquera and it’s hard to pick holes in Arsenal’s squad now, with the addition of Madueke not only adding a talented player to the team but also putting them in a position to actually rest Bukayo Saka every once in a while.
There’s one final box left to tick, and that’s the signing of a left winger. Arsenal are after both Eberechi Eze and Rodrygo and either should be excellent signings – get one of those deals over the line, and Arsenal will have everything they need to win a first title in over 20 years. On paper, anyway.
Sunderland
It’s tough as a newly-promoted team, and doubly so when you start the summer by losing one of your best players, as Sunderland did when they sold Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund. At that point, every sensible betting man would be putting their savings on Sunderland going straight back down.
In fairness, they probably still will. The gap between Championship and Premier League is vast these days, after all – but the Black Cats are doing a pretty good job of trying to bridge it, and have mostly signed young assets with plenty of resale value should they fail.
Habib Diarra, Simon Adingra, Noah Sadiki, Robin Roefs and Chemsdine Talbi all have an abundance of talent and even if they can’t keep Sunderland up, they should prove to be perfectly sensible investments. Sunderland have spent big, but if they miss they should still be able to get most of their money back.
The addition of Grant Xhaka means there’s some much-needed experience available to guide all that youthful enthusiasm, and the only really glaring concerns in the squad are that Sunderland really need a left-back (pre-season experiments with Harrison Jones have been unconvincing) and don’t have a proven Premier League goalscorer up front.
Well… there is one other glaring concern. While many of the new arrivals look like excellent additions, no fewer than five of them are likely to be missing for as much as a month for the Africa Cup of Nations. Sunderland’s squad could look a little thin when January rolls around. That potential problem aside, Sunderland seem to have done just about everything that could have done to give themselves half a chance at survival. It probably won’t work, but it looks like they’re giving it a good go.
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