Five managers who will break their personal transfer record this summer | OneFootball

Michael Carrick will obliterate his own personal transfer record once Manchester United appoint him permanently; he will not be alone.

The Chelsea, Leeds and Nottingham Forest managers ought to make the most expensive signings of their coaching career this summer too.

While Roberto De Zerbi might expect some transfer-based rewards if he keeps Spurs up.

Michael Carrick

“Certainly, in the role I’m in, there’s decisions that need taking care of,” Carrick said when asked about his level of Manchester United transfer input, even in his current state of managerial non-permanence.

But having received the omnipotent Jason Wilcox’s blessing to continue his fine work at Old Trafford, it can be safely assumed that Carrick will indeed be “definitely part of” the “conversations in different directions” being held ahead of the summer.

The 44-year-old has worked within a transfer committee set-up before at Middlesbrough but it will be quite the departure from the sort of numbers they were dealing with on Teesside.

Their biggest signing under Carrick was also one of his last: Morgan Whittaker joined for £5m in January 2025 and did not score for the rest of the season before the manager was sacked that summer.

Manchester United will probably be dealing with slightly bigger numbers in preparation for a return to the Champions League. As long as Carrick doesn’t rock the boat by demanding Emi Martinez and Ollie Watkins on a silver platter, he should be fine.

Xabi Alonso

While he would be exceptionally foolish for agreeing to work under these absurd Chelsea conditions, Alonso cannot wait forever for Liverpool to abandon the pretence that Arne Slot might be able to turn things around at Anfield.

The longer the Spaniard spends out of work after his Real Madrid demise, the itchier his cultured feet and the greater the risk of him fading from relevance becomes.

Those factors could combine to force Alonso into taking the second impossible managerial post of his nascent coaching career, at which point his judgement could be fairly questioned.

But he could have enough sway to demand some fundamental changes in the BlueCo approach, with the Chelsea hierarchy and its 427 sporting directors perhaps slightly more open to collaboration after this failure of a season.

If given even just a modicum of influence over recruitment, Alonso might steer clear of signing teenage South American wide forwards and instead focus on actually improving the current first team and squad.

Dean Huijsen is his most expensive signing at £50m; there are roughly six positions at Chelsea which need that level of investment or higher to sort.

Daniel Farke

“We had to be a bit creative anyhow because we didn’t want to risk the sustainability of this club,” Farke said after Leeds’ Premier League safety was confirmed.

“So we’ve actually spent less money and had a better outcome. This is a difficult blend if I am honest and we managed to do it,” he added, justifiably proud of the “small group of key people” responsible for delivering an excellent summer transfer window.

The most expensive signing Leeds made after coming up from the Championship was that of Anton Stach at around £17m. There have been few better additions across the entire league and that is the standard Farke will expect if he is to build on this season.

After this campaign there is likely to be a Big Lad premium imposed on Premier League clubs hoping to shift further towards the current more physical meta. Leeds were ahead of the curve on that last summer but might simply have to spend more on a select few signings instead of speculating to accumulate on a nine-figure budget.

Vitor Pereira

It is a rare but beautiful managerial arrangement which makes a coach who successfully averted relegation disaster nevertheless remarkably susceptible to being sacked at any point between the end of this season and the start of the next.

But this is Nottingham Forest and, arguably just as pertinently, this is Pereira.

After keeping Wolves up with ease in 2024/25, the Portuguese was imbued with a ridiculous degree of control over the transfer market and subsequently oversaw one of the more disastrous summers of any club in Premier League history.

Pereira was sacked by early November; Wolves were consigned to relegation.

That is the warning for Forest, although they will be neither dense enough to give Pereira such authority, nor so slow to react if it goes wrong.

It would arguably be more surprising if Pereira starts next season in charge than it would be for Evangelos Marinakis to send him a P45 written in Nuno Espirito Santo’s blood on fixture release day.

But if Pereira is given the keys, he might expect a more expensive present than £24m, hair-having Tolu Arokodare.

Roberto De Zerbi

Spurs need to do significant work in the summer transfer window. It just depends whether that involves signings players of a Premier League calibre to climb up the table and consolidate, or if in fact they actually need to target Adel Taarabt and Billy Sharp for some Championship fun.

De Zerbi knows better than to tempt fate and discuss that impossible balance publicly, but shortlists will have been compiled with a clear distinction between the players in column A and those in column B.

With survival still in their hands, there is nothing in Tottenham’s history which suggests they might fail from here. So they might as well get started on the Premier League-ready signings needed to push on.

Joao Pedro at £30m remains De Zerbi’s most expensive player ever; if Spurs remain in the top flight the Italian will surely be rewarded with something grander.