Have Premier League's most expensive signings been successful?

Two months ago Liverpool's huge summer transfer spend looked like it had made the Premier League title a formality.

Arne Slot's side were five points clear at the top of the table after only five games, having strengthened their squad with £415m worth of talent.

Florian Wirtz was signed from Bayer Leverkusen for an initial £100m, rising to a possible £116m. Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak joined on deadline day for a new record transfer fee of £125m, which could be £130m with add-ons.

Nothing could go wrong, could it?

Both signings have struggled and Liverpool's form has nosedived, leaving them 12th in the league.

Wirtz has no goals or assists in 11 Premier League outings. Isak has yet to score a goal and has one assist.

It is way too early to write off two of the most expensive Premier League signings of all time.

After all, Thierry Henry scored only two goals in his first 17 appearances for Arsenal. By the end of that season he had netted 17 times in the Premier League, 26 in all competitions and went on to be one of the league's greatest-ever players.

But curiously, when you look down the list of the Premier League's biggest incomings, there are not too many 'huge' successes.

How do you judge this? I've looked at each deal and given my verdict relative to their own achievements and that of their clubs. Fees shown are without add-ons.

Of course this is very subjective and you are free to disagree (or agree) in the comments below!

These two Chelsea players are grouped together because they were both signed in 2023, seven months apart, and their success is intrinsically linked.

Fernandez arrived first from Benfica in the winter window, fresh from winning the World Cup with Argentina and taking the Fifa Young Player award.

Caicedo followed in the summer from Brighton, just when it seemed the Ecuador international was bound for Liverpool.

Two years on and they have won the Conference League and the Club World Cup. However, after a sixth-placed finish in 2023-24 and coming fourth last season, could you really say Chelsea have excelled?

There is no doubting both players are real assets and they are two of the first names on the team sheet, with Caicedo playing all 38 Premier League games last season.

There is plenty of time the duo to win major honours with Chelsea (count the Club World Cup if you wish), and they are the closest challengers to Arsenal for the title this season.

Verdict: Promising. Chelsea have spent a lot of money on their squad in recent seasons but need more silverware, and a title bid, to show for it.

Could you really question a player who has won three Premier League titles, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Uefa Super Cup and the Club World Cup?

Grealish did start all of City's cup wins in 2023, but at no stage did he manage to reproduce the kind of consistent form he showed at Aston Villa.

In 2021-22 it was six goals and four assists in all competitions for City. In 2022-23 it was five goals and 11 assists. Compare that to his last two seasons at Villa combined, when he scored 17 goals and set up 20 more.

In the summer of 2023, City signed Jeremy Doku from Rennes in a clear signal that Pep Guardiola wasn't satisfied with Grealish.

Across the next two seasons, Grealish only made 20 Premier League appearances in each, with a total of four goals and two assists. The writing was on the wall and he was loaned out to Everton for this season.

Verdict: This is controversial, but can a player who cost £100m and was effectively discarded after two seasons be truly considered a success? It would be harsh to call Grealish a failure because he won almost all there is to win at City. But at the same time he did not kick on from his electric Villa form. Perhaps it is somewhere in the middle.

If Grealish has the medals but not the kudos, then the opposite can be said of Rice.

Rice was a very good midfielder at West Ham, but he has now proven himself to be world class and earned a reputation as a set-piece specialist too.

The 26-year-old is a certain starter for England at the World Cup next year, and Arsenal look far less effective without him.

But in terms of this discussion, the only honour Rice has picked up at Arsenal is the Community Shield in his very first appearance.

Verdict: To be determined. Arsenal have been turned into genuine title contenders by signing quality players like Rice. But until Arsenal win silverware the outlay won't be fully justified. With the Gunners six points clear at the top of the table, maybe that will change this season.

The first of two entries for Lukaku, and it is the move that was supposed to make him Chelsea's main striker at the second attempt (he was also on their books 2011-2014).

Chelsea signed Lukaku in 2021 from Inter Milan, where he had scored 64 goals in 95 games in all competitions, won the Scudetto and was the Serie A Footballer of the Year.

Surely Lukaku would be a success? He did score four goals in his first four games, but his impact very quickly waned and after the turn of the year he netted only three Premier League goals from a total of 15 goals in 44 matches across all competitions.

After one season, he was gone again.

Verdict: Failure. Lukaku won the Club World Cup in February 2022 but that's scant return for such a huge outlay. He returned to Inter on loan after just one season and eventually left Chelsea permanently in 2024, joining Napoli for just £30m where he would again win the Italian title.

All told, this is considered one of the worst pieces of transfer business.

Pogba had left Manchester United for Juventus as a free agent in 2012, and four years later they spent £89m to bring him back to Old Trafford.

Pogba did stay at United for six years in his second spell, but he was supposed to rejuvenate the team and there was little evidence of this.

A return of 39 goals in 226 games isn't terrible, but only in the 2018-19 season -where he scored 13 in the Premier League and was named in the PFA Team of the Year - did he ever live up to his price tag.

Verdict: Failure. United only won the Europa League and the EFL Cup during his second spell, with brief glimpses of his quality. At the end of his contract in 2022 he went back to Juve on a free.

Signed by Erik ten Hag from Ajax in 2022 as part of his rebuild of the squad, Antony was supposed to bring pace and creativity to the attack.

The Brazilian had scored 24 goals and provided 22 assists in two seasons for the Dutch club. But at Old Trafford he looked a completely different player, devoid of confidence.

Antony scored only five Premier League goals and provided three assists in two and a half seasons before he was loaned to Real Betis, a move which then became permanent.

That he has excelled at Betis, with 15 goals and seven assists in 38 games across all competitions, makes his form at Old Trafford all the more mystifying.

Verdict: Failure. Antony did win the FA Cup (although he was an unused substitute in the final victory over Manchester City) and EFL Cup, but his performances did not come close to the huge price tag.

Maguire became, and still is, the most expensive defender in the world when he moved from Leicester City in 2019.

But his name is synonymous with a continued period of decline at Old Trafford and he only has one EFL Cup medal (he missed the FA Cup final win through injury) to show for it.

Under Ten Hag he was stripped of the captaincy and came close to a cut-price move to West Ham in 2023. And since the 2021-22 season, he has not started more than half the club's Premier League games in any campaign.

Verdict: Failure. For the world's most expensive defender to win so little, never make the PFA Team of the Year and play relatively few games in his six seasons means the deal does not come close to a success.

Signed in 2023 from RB Leipzig, Gvardiol became the second-most expensive defender of all time behind Maguire.

The Croatia international won the Uefa Super Cup, the Club World Cup and the Premier League in his first season at Manchester City.

Despite City suffering a poor season in 2024-25, Gvardiol was named the club's Player of the Season.

Verdict: The jury's out. Gvardiol had a good start at the Etihad, and he is only 23 so has the best years of his career ahead of him. His versatility and composure are an asset, but at the moment the transfer fee looks excessive.

Manchester United thought they were solving their goalscoring problems in 2017 when they signed Lukaku from Everton, where he had netted 87 goals in 166 games.

But like every United player on this list, it was a case of overpaying to little tangible return.

Lukaku's numbers are not actually terrible. He scored 16 Premier League goals in his first season, and 27 goals in all competitions - one of only 11 players to break the 25-goal barrier since 1992-93.

What started promisingly soon drifted off, with 26% of his goals - or 11 out of 42 - being scored in the first two months of his Old Trafford career. The club's tactical approach did not help, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at times playing him out on the wing.

Verdict: Failure, though with a caveat as United did recoup £68.1m when he left for Inter Milan in 2019. Despite the initial goals, Manchester United won nothing in his two years.

We have had to to get to the bottom of the list to find the only player who can be considered to have truly lived up to his price tag.

Signed from Southampton in 2018, Van Dijk has earned a reputation as one of the world's very best defenders - with the trophies to boot - over an extended period.

The central defender has made 336 appearances for Liverpool, scoring 30 goals, and has been named in the PFA Team of the Year five times. He was also PFA Player of the Season in his first year at Anfield.

With one Champions League, two Premier League titles, one FA Cup, two EFL Cups, the Uefa Super Cup and the Club World Cup to his name, he's won the level of silverware you'd expect for a player in this price range.

Verdict: Total success.

Source: BBC
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