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

After only five games, Arne Slot’s side had a squad worth £415m, which strengthened their squad and put them five points clear of the table.

Florian Wirtz’s contract at Bayer Leverkusen was an initial £100 million, with potential increases to £116 million. 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 possibly go wrong, right?

Both signings have had issues, and Liverpool are currently 12th in the league after their worst year.

Wirtz has no goals or assists in 11 Premier League outings. Hassak has one assist and has not yet scored a goal.

Two of the most expensive Premier League signings ever were still unaccounted for, so it’s far too early.

After all, Thierry Henry scored only two goals in his first 17 appearances for Arsenal. By the end of that season, he had scored 26 goals overall and 17 times in the Premier League, making him one of the league’s greatest players ever.

However, there aren’t many “hell” successes when you look down the list of the Premier League’s biggest incomings, which is odd.

How do you judge this? I’ve looked at each deal and made my choice based on both their own successes and those of their respective clubs. The prices are unadjusted.

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

Fernandez, who had just won the World Cup with Argentina and won the Fifa Young Player award, came first from Benfica in the winter.

Caicedo left Brighton for Liverpool just as it appeared the Ecuador international was about to leave.

Two years on and they have won the Conference League and the Club World Cup. Could you say Chelsea has excelled, though, after finishing sixth in 2023-24 and finishing fourth last season?

Both players are unquestionably valuable assets, and Caicedo, who played all 38 Premier League games last year, are both first names on the team roster.

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.

A player who has won three Premier League titles, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Uefa Super Cup, and the Club World Cup, is a real challenger, right?

Although he did not win any of City’s 2023 cups, he never managed to maintain the same level of consistency he did at Aston Villa.

In 2021-22 it was six goals and four assists in all competitions for City. Five goals and eleven assists were recorded in 2022-23. He scored 17 goals and added 20 more during his final two seasons at Villa, a total of 20.

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

Grealish only managed 20 Premier League appearances over the course of each, totaling four goals and two assists. He was given a loan to Everton for the season and the writing was on the wall.

If Rice receives the medals but not the kudos, then the opposite can be said.

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 will start for England in the World Cup next year, and Arsenal’s performance would be much lower without him.

The only honor Rice has received from Arsenal is the Community Shield in his very first appearance, according to this discussion.

Lukaku’s entry was the first of two attempts, and it was the move that was supposed to make him Chelsea’s starting striker in the second attempt (he was also listed on their books for 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.

Lukaku would undoubtedly be a success, right? Although he did score four goals in his first four games, his impact faded quickly, and he only managed to score three Premier League goals overall in 44 matches played across all divisions at the start of the year.

After one season, he was gone again.

Overall, this transfer business is regarded as one of the worst.

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.

There was little evidence that Pogba had any intention of rejuvenating the United team during his second spell, despite the fact that he had stayed there for six years.

He never lived up to his price tag, but he did it in the 2018-19 season when he scored 13 in the Premier League and was named in the PFA Team of the Year. A return of 39 goals in 226 games isn’t terrible.

Erik ten Hag from Ajax signed Antony in 2022 as part of his squad rebuild, promising to spice up the attack with pace and creativity.

In two seasons, the Dutch club had scored 24 goals and added 22 assists. But at Old Trafford he looked a completely different player, devoid of confidence.

Before being loaned to Real Betis, which eventually became permanent, Antony only managed to score five Premier League goals and add three assists in the process.

His form at Old Trafford is only made more puzzling by the fact that he has 15 goals and seven assists in 38 games across all competitions.

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

However, his name implies a persisted decline at Old Trafford, and he is the only player to have won an EFL Cup medal (he missed the FA Cup final win due to injury).

He was let go of the captaincy by Ten Hag and almost secured a cheap transfer 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.

Gvardiol moved from RB Leipzig to become the second-highest-priced defender in history, just behind Maguire.

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

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

When Manchester United signed Lukaku from Everton, who had scored 87 goals in 166 games, they believed they were solving their scoring issues.

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

Lukaku’s numbers aren’t terrible in reality. One of only 11 players to surpass the 25-goal mark since 1992-1993, he scored 16 Premier League goals in his first season and 27 in all competitions.

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. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer occasionally played him out on the wing, which was a tactical error by the club.

We had to descend to the bottom of the list to identify the only player who could be said to have lived up to his or her expectations.

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 scored 30 goals in 336 games for Liverpool and has been named five times in the PFA Team of the Year. In his first year at Anfield, he won PFA Player of the Year.

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.

Overall, a success.

Guwahati, day four of the fifth test

South Africa 489 (Muthusamy 109, Kuldeep 4-115) &amp, 260-5d (Stubbs 94, Jadeja 4-62)

India 201 (Jaiswal 58, Jansen 6-48) &amp, 27-2 (Jaiswal 13, Harmer 1-1)

To win, India needs 522 runs.

After defeating the hosts 27-2 in the chase of 549 on day four in Guwahati, South Africa are on the verge of clinching their first Test series victory there for 25 years.

India must bat all day to prevent a second whitewash in three home Test series after being squandered for 201 in their opening innings.

They hadn’t lost a Test series on home soil since 12 years prior to last October’s 3-0 defeat by New Zealand.

By a score of 30 runs, South Africa won the two-test series opener in Kolkata.

South Africa resumed its 26-0 defeat to reach 77-3, losing three wickets for 18 runs in a 13-over spell, before Tristan Stubbs took the lead.

He led South Africa’s overnight lead of 314 to extend to 94, shared a century partnership with Tony de Zorzi, and added 82 with Wiaan Mulder.

When South Africa declared, he missed out on a third Test century when he was bowled by spinner Ravindra Jadeja’s slower ball (4-2-42) during a slower ball.

In reply, India lost two wickets within the final ten overs, with Marco Jansen and Simon Harmer bowling KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

From New Zealand’s dramatic victory over Ireland in Chicago to Wales’ stunning victory over Japan in Cardiff, the Autumn Nations Series has produced some excellent rugby.

Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s incredible performance for France, Argentina’s incredible comeback against Scotland, England’s rise as a global force, and South Africa’s impressive victories in Paris and Dublin cement their greatness.

However, there are also some issues, particularly regarding the use of the television game official [TMO], especially with regard to foul play.

Eddie Jones, the Japanese manager, has called the amount of time lost in the game “bright absurd,” while Chris Ashton, the former England wing, claims that the officiating has been “bang average” at times throughout the month.

Former Ireland flanker Stephen Ferris claimed the game felt “broken” after a game that lasted for more than two hours with five yellow cards and the hosts being at one point down to 12 men.

What can the sport do to get better, then, and why is it in this predicament?

The rugby union movement’s core embodies a paradox. A game that is inherently physical and, in some ways, dangerous, has experienced an existential crisis with numerous ex-players being sued by the game’s authorities.

In response, the law-makers have spent years attempting to stop dangerous play by giving referees authority to order illegal tackles with red and yellow cards.

However, rugby union at the highest level has never been more brutal, as the Springboks demonstrated when they destroyed Ireland at the Aviva, despite the desire to change the game from a collision game to one that is more of an evasion one.

Therefore, it is understandable that the authorities are on a red alert to prevent any potentially dangerous tackles or collisions. What results from this? referrals to TMO. . . . Time expended in the game. A complex and challenging sport that is already getting harder to referee.

What sport has a higher level of officials than rugby? asks Paul Grayson, the winner of the World Cup.

Without all the extra goings-on, “It is a very difficult game to officiate anyway.”

The NFL, with seven referees on the field and England’s top cap centurion Danny Care, is the only other game I can recall with that many contacts and situations.

The things that are happening off the field with referrals, TMOs, and bunker reviews are what are currently causing the game to slow down and be confusing, Grayson says.

In recent years, the powers-that-be have struggled to strike a balance between ensuring player safety and keeping the game moving while also handing the referee a helping hand.

The off-pitch official has 10 minutes to look over the footage in private and decide whether a yellow card should be upgraded to a red card while the game is on. The goal of the bunker system was established in 2023.

The 20-minute red card is meant to punish the offender rather than the paying punter, though. In an effort to prevent the spectacle from completely deteriorating, the guilty party can be replaced after 20 minutes.

The bunker and the 20-minute red cards seem like theoretical solid ideas, but they aren’t foolproof in practice.

Tadhg Beirne’s yellow card for the opening weekend was upgraded to a 20-minute red for the All Blacks. A disciplinary panel then overturned it.

A fortnight later, Franco Mostert of South Africa was sent off with a full red card for his part of the match against Italy.

Harry Hockings of Japan was redone for his team’s match against Wales on the same weekend, and Ireland fans were outraged as Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, the team’s talisman, avoided criticism for a clumsy challenge on Tommy O’Brien.

The officials have a reputation for being dishonest. The fans will shut off if there are too many TMO checks and stoppages. Coaches and supporters will also be tempted to blame them for any foul play that occurs on the field.

However, it’s been difficult to determine this month’s definitions of a penalty, a card, and the appropriate color for that card.

Even the most knowledgeable rugby fans are squirming their heads.

Ugo Monye, a former England and Lions wing, adds that “there needs to be a recalibration.” It seemed obvious what the decision should be on some of those decisions, but it seems like they were handled poorly this month. I can tolerate the bunker officials’ errors, but I have less patience for them.

One suggestion is to significantly reduce TMO interference, giving the on-field referee more authority to make quick and unmistakable decisions.

Another option is to employ top-notch TMOs to provide the best guidance to the field officials.

Officials who are centrally contracted to World Rugby could also contribute to consistency because referees interpret the game in different ways, from league to league, tournament to tournament, and from hemisphere to hemisphere.

Meanwhile, game legends like Eddie Jones have long advocated for limiting replacements in an effort to reduce collisions, open up space, and reduce fatigue.

Referees must start introducing pace to the game for Ashton.

He claims that the refereeing was “blank average” and that it is “frustrating me.”

“Luke Pearce excelled in the France vs. Australia game. He was immediately spherical with the game. The referee then permits a player to tie his shoelace for a minute while watching England vs. Argentina.

Steve Borthwick, England manager, thinks the international team is in poor health despite the concerns.

“I believe Test rugby is in excellent shape,” he said. He claimed in a podcast for Rugby Union Weekly that “there are so many games that end in the final quarter with just one score.”

“I watched the Ireland vs. South Africa game and found it fascinating. Yes, there were a lot of TMOs, but there was a lot of tension there. It is very good, in my opinion, from the perspective of the audience.

Monye goes on to say that we shouldn’t change everything and run the risk of changing the laws too much.

“For the most part of 18 months, I don’t believe there have been too many complaints about the game’s refereedness,” said one reviewer.

“But I do believe that this autumnal headwind has reached its peak, and I’m curious to see how it affects the Six Nations.” Not an overhaul, but a tweak is required.

The aforementioned Six Nations will be a highly anticipated classic, and there will also be the first Nations Championship in men’s basketball in 2026. There is a lot to look forward to.