Every £50m+ transfer between Premier League clubs as Spurs eye two more | OneFootball

Tottenham have already made one £50m-plus move this summer for Jan Paul van Hecke and they are about to make two more.

Signing Premier League players has become an obsession for Tottenham but they are not alone.

2025 really was the summer of the intra-Premier League transfer but 2026 is starting in similar vein.

32) Aaron Wan-Bissaka – £45m rising to £50m (Crystal Palace to Manchester United, June 2019)

It is unknown exactly when Manchester United added Wan-Bissaka to an apparent 804-strong list of potential right-backs, but they cannot pretend it was any earlier than about halfway through his first full season of top-flight football.

Crystal Palace cashed in on stock which would never be quite so high, raking in about £1.19m for each of his Premier League career appearances to that point.

31) Kyle Walker – £45m rising to £50m (Spurs to Manchester City, July 2017)

One prominent journalist called it ‘the moment we all knew the Premier League had lost its mind,’ but even with Walker’s regression as the captain who betrayed Pep Guardiola mid-season his signing was transformational for player and club.

Even if it was wild to see Walker reign as the most expensive defender ever for a few months, he left after eight years with about twice as many trophies won.

30) Noni Madueke – £48.5m rising to £52m (Chelsea to Arsenal, July 2025)

A section of the most ‘entitled’ fanbase in the world ought to have been ashamed at how they rallied against Arsenal’s latest signing of a Chelsea cast-off.

While neither the striker Arsenal needed nor the Rodrygo-level wide forward they wanted, Madueke provided the sort of attacking cover which was painfully lacking in their last failed title charge. Now he is a title winner and a World Cup player.

29) Amadou Onana – £50m (Everton to Aston Villa, July 2024)

With Douglas Luiz forced out in a PSR panic, Aston Villa prepared for their Champions League debut by scouring the Premier League for clubs in similar financial disorder, who also happened to boast one of the country’s better midfielders.

28) Ben White – £50m (Brighton to Arsenal, July 2021)

The laborious false equivalences with Raphael Varane did not last long. Arsenal had a series of bids rejected for a defender whose entire career consisted of a single season in each of League Two, League One, the Championship and the Premier League as Brighton knew what they had and how much it was worth.

27) Fernando Torres – £50m (Liverpool to Chelsea, January 2011)

A generationally dreadful British record transfer, yet one which delivered Torres the trophies he craved when leaving Liverpool after a productive but entirely potless three and a half years.

26) Yoanne Wissa – £50m rising to £55m (Brentford to Newcastle United, September 2025)

A very desperate Newcastle paid a hefty fee for an injured striker turning 29 who would not even make his debut until December. He then scored one Premier League goal. We don’t think that fee will be rising anywhere.

25) Richarlison – £50m rising to £60m (Everton to Spurs, July 2022)

With a ‘nonsense’ and ultimately phantom £85m Barcelona bid firmly in his rear-view mirror, Richarlison and Everton both felt it was time to cash in on four decent, hard-working seasons when Spurs chucked a healthy profit their way.

It has been far from seamless in north London for the Brazilian, who has been hoist by the disallowed-goal-followed-by-booking-for-removing-shirt-when-celebrating petard an absurd number of times. But the bloke has won a Europa League so…

24) Pedro Neto – £51.4m rising to £54m (Wolves to Chelsea, August 2024)

Arsenal, Manchester City, Newcastle and Spurs were sniffing around but Chelsea live for the hijack and swooped at the latest annual Wolves car boot sale.

Was six goals and nine assists in 45 games across his debut season worth it? Doesn’t matter when you feed off transfer vibes.

23) Jan Paul van Hecke – £52m (Brighton to Tottenham, June 2026)

We like to think that Tottenham offered a lower fee with add-ons related to trophies and Brighton just took the straight money, thank you. Brighton do a retain a hefty sell-on clause but the idea that Spurs might make a profit of a good but not great Premier League defender feels very remote indeed.

22) Anthony Elanga – £52m rising to £55m (Nottingham Forest to Newcastle, July 2025)

A £15m signing from Manchester United became a potential £55m sale to Newcastle within two years for Nottingham Forest, who could not resist that sweet profit when Eddie Howe kept loitering around the City Ground car park waiting for Elanga.

And it’s fair to say that Forest ended up laughing all the way to bank.

21) Matheus Nunes – £53m (Wolves to Manchester City, September 2023)

The repurposing of Nunes as a competent right-back should not mask how ludicrous it is that Manchester City can put more than £50m down on a player the manager later publicly decries as “not clever enough” to play in his preferred position.

20) Romeo Lavia – £53m rising to £58m (Southampton to Chelsea, August 2023)

The numbers are a little shady but they paint a compelling picture: Lavia has missed almost three times as many Chelsea games through injury (101) as he has played for the Blues since joining (43).

There is a phenomenal player within but as his own personal physio said recently, “questions gradually arise”.

19) Mohammed Kudus – £55m (West Ham to Spurs, July 2025)

The first player to leave West Ham for Spurs since Scott Parker was identified by Thomas Frank as a priority signing – and a sale the Hammers needed to make before they could embark on their own squad renovations.

West Ham selling a player to a bitter rival for £25m under their reported release clause is fairly damning of Kudus, but he was Tottenham’s best player in an otherwise-disastrous season before he succumbed to serious injury.

18) Joao Pedro – £55m rising to £60m (Brighton to Chelsea, July 2025)

Newcastle made a play but their opening bid was knocked back by Brighton and Pedro wanted Chelsea in any case, presumably to guarantee there were some familiar faces to greet him.

“They had brilliant players in the past and have brilliant players now, so I am excited to join and you know when you are a Chelsea player you must think one thing – win,” he said, clearly having never heard of Dan Burn.

17) Mason Mount – £55m rising to £60m (Chelsea to Manchester United, July 2023)

Mount has missed 70 games through injury since making his move to Manchester United, for whom he has played 72 times.

16) Dominic Solanke – £55m rising to £65m (Bournemouth to Spurs, August 2024)

Liverpool had a buy-back clause but chose not to use it, leaving Spurs with a free hit after Arsenal were ruled out on the basis they did not then spend significant sums on actual forwards.

There was an actual trophy in his first season but an injury-disrupted second season brought only six goals and 20 games. Tottenham will undoubtedly be looking for a striker upgrade.

15) Marc Cucurella – £56m rising to £63m (Brighton to Chelsea, August 2022)

Manchester City had offers of £30m and £40m rejected before balking at demands of around £50m. Chelsea picked up the slack and it remains one of the biggest Premier League transfer overpays of all time.

Cucurella did eventually – after a rocky start – become a bastion of reliability as a European champion with Spain, but he has since fled to Real Madrid as the first cash-in of the 2026 summer.

14) Riyad Mahrez – £60m (Leicester to Manchester City, July 2018)

Had things gone to plan then Mahrez would have honoured only the first season of a four-year contract he signed with newly-crowned Premier League champions Leicester. The Algerian felt he had a gentleman’s agreement that would allow him to walk proudly out of the door in summer 2017 but the Foxes were unmoved.

Mahrez might not regret that delayed exit in retrospect. It allowed Pep Guardiola to crystallise his interest in a player who would win 10 further trophies at the Etihad.

13) Eberechi Eze – £60m rising to £67.5m (Crystal Palace to Arsenal, August 2025)

While he will hope to emulate Thierry Henry, having looked up to the Frenchman as an Arsenal academy graduate until his release as a 13-year-old in 2011, Eze had already endeared himself to the fanbase by following in the footsteps of Emmanuel Petit and leading Spurs on.

That long road back to the Emirates opened up when Eze made a personal call to Mikel Arteta before fully committing to their bitter rivals, wanting to confirm that boyhood club Arsenal was not an option.

It prompted a quick and straightforward hijack from Arsenal for a versatile forward who they feel can diversify their attack.

For that money, he would probably have hoped to start more than 22 Premier League games in his first season, but a Premier League title will keep him warm at night.

12) Matheus Cunha – £62.5m (Wolves to Manchester United, June 2025)

It feels like the sort of signing Sir Alex Ferguson would have made, just not from 15th in the Premier League table.

Cunha only finished one place lower with Wolves but that was not for his own lack of effort or ability in a season spent scoring 17 goals, assisting six and apologising countless times for intimating that he would quite like to leave at some point.

His first season at United saw him just about scrape a pass with 10 Premier League goals.

11) Antoine Semenyo – £62.5m rising to £64m (Bournemouth to Manchester City, January 2026)

As simple as a £60m-plus transfer could ever hope to be, with Manchester City and Bournemouth agreeing a deal just short of his £65m release fee but with that hefty guaranteed payment and sell-on clause knocking a few quid off the price.

The Cherries were more than happy to make a profit of over £50m on the Ghanaian and City were happy to pay for a player who made an immediate impact, including the winning goal in the FA Cup final.

10) Kai Havertz – £65m (Chelsea to Arsenal, June 2023)

Rarely has a transfer ever continued to polarise the footballing world long after it was made quite so fundamentally as Arsenal throwing their new-found title weight behind a Chelsea cast-off.

When Arsenal needed a Proper Striker it was decided by Mikel Arteta that a sort of centre-forward would do, even though he was signed as Granit Xhaka’s midfield successor at the time. A total of 54 combined goals and assists in 111 games is a fine record for a player whose strengths are ignored and shortcomings highlighted like few others.

9) Bryan Mbeumo – £65m rising to £71m (Brentford to Manchester United, July 2025)

In a landmark summer for Premier League clubs overpaying for overperforming forwards within the division, Mbeumo was always likely to lead the pack after six excellent seasons with Brentford culminated in a 20-goal campaign.

Newcastle withdrawing from the race when the Frenchman made his preference to move to Old Trafford clear should theoretically have made a deal easier and perhaps less expensive to strike. But no.

Mbeumo did just about enough in his first season at United to justify the outlay.

8) Wesley Fofana – £70m rising to £75m (Leicester to Chelsea, August 2022)

The final boss of the Lavia-Mount strand of player. Fofana has played just 72 games for Chelsea in four seasons at the club.

Thomas Tuchel was in charge when they signed him!

7) Virgil van Dijk – £75m (Southampton to Liverpool, January 2018)

Liverpool received a slapped wrist for their ‘illegal approach’ of Van Dijk but the inevitable could only be delayed for so long by Southampton.

Eight years later it looks like Saints were fleeced if anything.

6) Romelu Lukaku – £75m rising to £90m (Everton to Manchester United, July 2017)

The transfer narrative that defined summer 2017 revolved around Lukaku, Alvaro Morata, Manchester United, Chelsea and some quite uncomfortable comparative undertones.

There were precisely no winners from the sorry old mess. It is a great bit that former Chelsea and Manchester United striker Lukaku’s three best goalscoring Premier League seasons were with Everton and West Brom.

5) Harry Maguire – £80m (Leicester to Manchester United, August 2019)

Another player Manchester City flirted with before, in Guardiola’s words, it was decided the club with a basically unlimited budget “could not afford it”, Maguire was Manchester United’s answer to the conundrum Liverpool posed with Van Dijk: what if teams actually spent considerable money on a centre-half?

Maguire’s greatest asset since has been mental resilience. He was stripped of a captaincy awarded to him within half a year of joining and has been ostracised by two managers before both realised their mistake and brought him back into the fold.

4) Jack Grealish – £100m (Aston Villa to Manchester City, August 2021)

A player so good Aston Villa had to sign three before he left to replace him.

Grealish was the free-running show pony in a modest stable, who was eventually turned into glue after being consumed by the great Manchester City outdoors.

3) Declan Rice – £100m rising to £105m (West Ham to Arsenal, July 2023)

Arsenal played an absolute blinder in laying the groundwork before keeping the bidding at a controlled level. Manchester City made one offer and promptly withdrew from the race upon its rejection, leaving the Gunners with a clear track.

A Premier League title in his third season with Rice at the heart of glory makes this that real rarity: A £100m bargain.

2) Moises Caicedo – £100m rising to £115m (Brighton to Chelsea, August 2023)

Chelsea, however, made an absolute mess of their record move for a midfield cheat code that summer, but Caicedo has ultimately rendered that moot by growing into his role impeccably. Chelsea’s shortcomings are not laid at his door.

1) Alexander Isak – £125m (Newcastle to Liverpool, September 2025)

Newcastle resisted for as long as they could but finally relented when the smoke had cleared from all the bridges Isak had burned.

The Sweden international felt there was a gentleman’s agreement which allowed him to go and he bloody well ensured it was adhered to, even if it meant torching his reputation as the beloved hero who helped end Newcastle’s trophy drought.

A first season blighted by injury and poor form means this has to go down as a massive flop for the foreseeable.