The six biggest 25/26 Premier League overpays assessed: Newcastle damned but ‘angry’ Man Utd justified | OneFootball

Eddie Howe could probably be sacked purely for those Newcastle overpays last summer, but Liverpool and Man Utd were right to go big.

It is time to evaluate how the biggest overpays of this Premier League season have fared.

Thanks to Transfermarkt for crunching the numbers in terms of valuations and fees.

Nick Woltemade (Newcastle United)

“We offered €55 million for Nick Woltemade, while Stuttgart wanted €75 million. In the end he went to Newcastle for €90m,” said Bayern Munich’s honorary president Uli Hoeness.

When someone who has literally served time for tax evasion feels comfortable accusing you of financial impropriety and approaching the transfer window “like Monopoly”, something has gone gravely wrong. Like, your manager and his nephew have taken control of recruitment wrong.

Anthony Gordon leapt to his new team-mate’s defence, while Eddie Howe took the usual high road by describing the fee as “absolutely irrelevant” and dictated by “market forces”.

“Market forces”, in this instance, being shorthand for ‘needing to sign someone in a massive late panic after a series of embarrassing rejections was compounded by the coerced sale of their most important player’.

Newcastle made Woltemade the most expensive player in their history on the back of two full Bundesliga seasons in which the German scored 14 goals in 58 games; he was supposed to help replace Alexander Isak’s 62 goals in 109 matches.

It started well enough as Woltemade scored four times in his first five matches as a Magpie but things have unravelled since, to the extent he is now more of a midfielder – if he even plays at all.

Yoane Wissa (Newcastle United)

“They’re both outstanding players,” Eddie Howe said recently of a £124m strikeforce firmly behind Will Osula in the current pecking order. “I don’t in any way doubt their individual qualities. They’ll both be better for this season’s experience next season.”

It would be hard for things to be worse for Wissa in particular. His bridge-burning Brentford betrayal was the precursor to a knee injury which meant his Newcastle debut had to wait until December.

Three goals in his first 13 appearances, largely from the bench while getting up to full speed, was a respectable enough delayed start. But Wissa has not scored in 11 games and is available for a significant knockdown fee on the £55m Newcastle had squeezed out of them in the first place.

And of course Wissa’s Brentford replacement is chasing the Golden Boot; some clubs aren’t actually absurdly poor at succession planning.

At least Wissa doesn’t turn 30 in September, have three years left on his contract, or a clause entitling Brentford to 25 per cent of any fee Newcastle receive. That would be annoying.

Alexander Isak (Liverpool)

Despite Alexander Isak having almost completed his first season at Liverpool, Newcastle are still adamant he is not for sale.

It was even made ‘simple for simpletons’, the sheer not-for-saleness of a player whose British record sale only became more inevitable with each briefed hard-line Newcastle stance.

The spectre of Isak haunted and undermined Newcastle’s entire transfer window, but it helped stunt Liverpool’s too. He was the jewel in an extravagant crown they spent the entire summer crafting at vast expense, while ignoring the concept of simultaneously signing any centre-halves.

Even at his prolific best, Isak could not have masked every Liverpool deficiency this season. But the acclimatisation period – without a pre-season due to his late arrival – in a time of transition was arduous and the weight of expectation was such that the sheer effort required to score his third goal in 16 appearances literally broke his leg.

Isak has scored once in five games since returning, and the injury caveat can only be used to explain some of a difficult first season. If he is to live up to the £125m valuation, it would be unprecedented in the eyes of Jamie Carragher.

Hugo Ekitike (Liverpool)

Some ostensible overpays are not actually cursed into oblivion the moment the contract is signed. Ekitike has embraced a fee and role that has become an encumbrance to others.

It took him a few months to force Isak onto the bench, with the attacking spotlight also dragged away from Mo Salah by a player who might have been expected to sit and wait patiently for his chances in a crowded frontline.

Ekitike has instead almost dominated it as Liverpool’s leading scorer in all competitions, their only player who has reached double figures for Premier League goals by the final month of the season.

He even ranks joint-sixth for combined goals and assists of any Premier League player this season, level with Rayan Cherki and behind only Antoine Semenyo, Igor Thiago, Bruno Fernandes, Joao Pedro and Erling Haaland.

A stellar first season in England was cut short by an injury which will keep Ekitike out until 2027, robbing the Arsenal title winner of the World Cup place he had earned with France.

But unlike others who have succumbed to a similar fate in such circumstances, the hope will be that Ekitike can pick up where he left off rather than starting again with a completely clean slate upon his return.

Bryan Mbeumo (Manchester United)

It started with Manchester United winding Brentford up even before a first bid of £45m plus £10m in add-ons was lodged.

Then came an offer of £55m with another £7.5m chucked in through numerous performance-based clauses.

By the time Manchester United finally sealed the deal 44 days after that opening gambit in a £65m plus £6m deal, it was they who were expressing their private anger with their fellow negotiators.

But the hassle involved in those talks was worth it. While there is room for improvement in Mbeumo’s 10 goals and three assists in 30 appearances, it represents an excellent start to life at Old Trafford.

Even just through scoring against Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester City and Arsenal in his debut campaign, Mbeumo has lived up to his billing as a big fish continuing to thrive after swapping a small pond for a veritable ocean.

Three goals (in 7-2 and 3-1 defeats) and two assists in 47 games. For £55m. Bloody hell, Newcastle.