A Liverpool pair signed for £169m have been replaced for £49m, while a record Wolves flop could take the place of the new Manchester United saviour.
It has been a busy summer transfer window featuring some remarkably expensive signings who have been excitedly crowbarred into prospective line-ups ahead of the new season.
But far more interesting is how those players are going to be replaced by selling clubs with lucrative holes burning in their pocket.
While the transfer plans of Premier League teams are intimately known and reported on, less publicised is how foreign sides respond to the loss of a player.
These are the six biggest sales made by clubs outside the Premier League this summer – not including Victor Osimhen as Napoli had already moved on with Scott McTominay – and who has been or is expected to be signed to replace them.
The Florian Wirtz replacement – Malik TillmanBayer Leverkusen have fulfilled their obligations as the sanctioners of a nine-figure sale, reinvesting the Wirtz money through the rest of their squad on expensive defenders, lavish forwards, a Brentford keeper and, most delightfully of all, a Senegalese defender named Abdoulaye Faye.
But the fairly substantial hole left by a chief creator with 34 goals and 35 assists in the last two seasons could not be left vacated.
Tillman is a slightly different sort of player, not to mention a little older and less experienced. But at £30m he will be expected to carry much of the attacking burden for Erik ten Hag, even if the new manager has described replacing their crown jewel as “almost impossible”.
The Hugo Ekitike replacement – Jonathan Burkardt
Signed around three weeks before Ekitike was sold, there must nevertheless have been a sense that Burkardt could ultimately be part of a wholesale redesign of the attack rather than a complement to Frankfurt’s breakout star.
The loss of Omar Marmoush in January had already put a new forward towards the top of Frankfurt’s transfer needs ahead of a campaign in the Champions League; another expensive Premier League sale in Ekitike meant almost the entire window has been spent building their frontline back up from the ground.
Burkardt is more of a natural finisher than Ekitike and indeed Marmoush, but Ritsu Doan of Freiburg can help sort the creative side. Both cost around €22m each and will be sold within 18 months for three times that.
The Benjamin Sesko replacement – Fabio Silva or RomuloThe career of Fabio Silva remains a wonderful mystery.
Since becoming their record signing in 2020 on the back of 21 first-team career games, the Portuguese has scored more goals for three of the four clubs he has joined on loan than he has for Wolves. And the five he plundered for the exception to that rule, PSV, match his total Molineux haul.
Yet with a year remaining on his contract and his last appearance for the club having come in November 2023, Wolves still want around £22m for the 23-year-old and will very likely get it.
Borussia Dortmund have been sniffing around but Leipzig have reportedly agreed personal terms.
Yet transfer fetishist Fabrizio Romano has thrown a curveball with the revelation that a £21.6m deal has been agreed with Goztepe for 23-year-old forward Romulo, ‘the Sesko replacement they always wanted’.
The Martin Zubimendi replacement – Ezequiel Fernandez or Jon GorrotxategiThere has been talk of academy product Gorrotxategi stepping into Zubimendi’s shoes after an impressive loan with Mirandes, but Real Sociedad seem far more likely to go down a more proven route.
The most concrete link involved Al Qadsiah midfielder Fernandez but that trail has gone cold since a €20m bid was knocked back by the Saudis in July.
La Real have curiously spent basically nothing of the £60m or so they received for Zubimendi, adding £3.5m Wolves forward Goncalo Guedes and sending a small loan fee Lyon’s way for Duje Caleta-Car.
They could even land a considerable windfall soon based on whether Alexander Isak can extricate himself from his Newcastle hostage situation. Real Sociedad hold a 10% sell-on clause on the Swede they kindly housed for a while this summer.
The Mateo Retegui replacement – Rodrigo MunizThe Saudi transfer revolution has undeniably slowed but the eight-point gap champions Al-Ittihad enjoyed at the end of last season has prompted the four sides immediately below them into action.
Al-Hilal have brought in Darwin Nunez and Theo Hernandez at great expense. Al-Ahli staged a lovely hijack of Atletico Madrid to sign Enzo Millot. Al-Nassr generously rescued Chelsea from themselves over Joao Felix.
And Al-Qadsiah decided to swap Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for Serie A top scorer Retegui on six times the wage he was earning with Atalanta.
In response, the Italians have identified Muniz as their priority signing and have not struggled to persuade a player who has spent the majority of his Fulham career on the bench that some time playing Champions League football in Bergamo might be preferable.
They face a slight obstacle in convincing Fulham to sell an excellent back-up striker in a summer the Cottagers have spent standing still while those around them jostle for position. A €40m bid has been rejected but €50m should do it.
Leeds were interested in Muniz but have decided to spend that money on finding a physio willing to clear Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The Viktor Gyokeres replacement – Luis Suarez“I’ve reached the peak of my career,” said Luis Suarez (not that one, that one, that one or that one) upon joining Sporting, which does imply a misunderstanding of the Portuguese club’s role in the food chain as a selling club.
But for a forward who turns 28 before the turn of the year, who has spent the majority of his senior career playing in the second tiers of Spain and Colombia after spending three years on the books at Watford, it absolutely does represent the summit for Suarez.
Sporting were never going to procure such a guarantee of goals as Gyokeres, who scored 97 times to deliver three trophies to Lisbon.
But their plundering of La Liga 2 for the division’s top scorer who helped drag Almeria to the promotion play-offs does raise a slight eyebrow, especially at €27m.
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