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.

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.