The 20 most expensive goalkeepers ever: Arsenal evolution summed up by three appearances | OneFootball

Arsenal are the only club to make as many as three of the 20 most expensive goalkeeper signings in football history.

Keepers remain curiously undervalued in terms of transfer fees, especially in comparison with other positions.

While £30m is pretty much the going rate for a competent midfielder or centre-forward nowadays, that would rank among the most expensive keepers ever with this lot.

1) Kepa Arrizabalaga – £71.6m/€80m (Athletic Bilbao to Chelsea, August 2018)

Despite never coming close to convincing at Stamford Bridge, the world’s most expensive keeper has racked up over 100 Premier League appearances and more clean sheets than Antti Niemi, who is actually 53. His best season as a Chelsea player was on loan at Bournemouth, mind. And now Arsenal might sign him for £5m.

2) Alisson – £67m/€75m (Roma to Liverpool, July 2018)

“Chelsea were changing their manager and not playing in the Champions League. I’ve also always admired Liverpool’s history. This is a club with five European Cups in their trophy cabinet. I really wanted to be part of that history,” said Alisson of his decision to join the Reds instead of the Blues in summer 2018. Having won it all at Anfield, it’s difficult to argue he chose wrong.

3) Andre Onana – £43.9m/€51m (Inter to Man Utd, July 2023)

Twelve months after joining Inter from Ajax as a free agent, Champions League finalist Onana reunited with Erik ten Hag as part of an Old Trafford revolution which has only continued to deteriorate well into Ruben Amorim’s reign.

4) Thibaut Courtois – £35m/€38.8m (Chelsea to Real Madrid, August 2018)

The desire of Courtois to leave Chelsea set in motion three of the four most expensive goalkeeper transfers in history. After starring in the 2018 World Cup, the Belgian forced a move to Real Madrid through and has 12 trophies to show for the subsequent seven years.

5) Ederson – £34.7m/€40m (Benfica to Manchester City, June 2017)

Claudio Bravo gave it a go but that went so well he lost his place mid-season to Willy Caballero, so Pep Guardiola went out and placed all his eggs in the basket of an uncapped 23-year-old with 74 top-flight career appearances. As it turns out: fair call.

6) Lucas Chevalier – £34.6m/€40m (Lille to Paris Saint-Germain, August 2025)

Like Jerzy Dudek in 2005, Gianluigi Donnarumma was granted a few weeks to bathe in the glory of a Champions League winner’s medal his heroics helped deliver before being informed he was surplus to requirements. If you don’t fall in line with PSG’s wage structure, you will be replaced.

7) Gianluigi Buffon – £32.6m/€51.9m (Parma to Juventus, July 2001)

For almost 16 years, Buffon reigned as the world’s most expensive goalkeeper – and it took no little inflation and conversion nonsense to dethrone him. Juventus got their money’s worth in 22 trophies, a record number of Serie A clean sheets and a historic amount of Champions League bottling.

8) Jasper Cillessen – £31.4m/€35m (Barcelona to Valencia, June 2019)

Valencia finished fourth in the two seasons before spending a small fortune on a 30-year-old keeper who played five La Liga games in three years with Barcelona; Los Che came 9th, 12th and 9th again before Cillessen left.

9) Jordan Pickford – £30m/€34m (Sunderland to Everton, June 2017)

There was mild disbelief at the time and some remain unconvinced but Everton signed Pickford upon his relegation to the Championship with Sunderland and no individual has played a bigger role in ensuring the same fate has not befallen the Toffees since.

10) Aaron Ramsdale – £30m/€35.5m (Sheffield United to Arsenal, August 2021)

Successive Premier League relegations with Bournemouth and Sheffield United did not deter Arsenal, who planned to bleed Ramsdale in slowly before realising he’s rather good. But not as good as…

11) David Raya – £27m/€31.9m (Brentford to Arsenal, July 2024)

An initial loan was only ever designed to circumvent PSR issues before eventually and inevitably being made permanent by Arsenal, who navigated some incredibly tiresome discourse around their goalkeepers and have been proven entirely right in making their ruthless upgrade.

12) James Trafford – £27m/€31.2m (Burnley to Manchester City, July 2025)

Burnley are claiming that they have sold Trafford for a British record fee for a goalkeeper but City sources place the deal at £27m plus add-ons. Newcastle were willing to pay that sum but, not for the first time, their lure was far less than City’s.

13) Gianluigi Donnarumma – £26m/€29.9m (Paris Saint-Germain to Manchester City, September 2025

A move to Manchester United made far more sense than Manchester City but even if the choice was ever made available to Donnarumma, he was picking Pep Guardiola’s side.

It does mean that one of the two keepers Manchester City have signed at great expense this season will spend their time on the bench; was Trafford aware a fight for the gloves was the plan all along?

14) Alex Meret – £26.25m/€35m (Udinese to Napoli, July 2018)

A Coppa Italia winner’s medal, saving from Paulo Dybala in the final shootout, and a Scudetto after fighting back from a rotational role to become regular starter again – that’s not a bad return.

15) Giorgi Mamardashvili – £25m/€30m (Valencia to Liverpool, August 2024)

With a keen eye on the future, Liverpool signed Mamardashvili and lent him back to Valencia for one more campaign of seasoning before heading to Anfield to presumably challenge Alisson for the gloves.

16) Manuel Neuer – £24.3m/€30m (Schalke to Bayern Munich, June 2011)

Bayern Munich supporters quite hilariously protested against the signing of Neuer over some daft grudge to do with Oliver Kahn. Twelve Bundesligas and a couple of Champions Leagues might have won them over by now.

17) Francesco Toldo – £23.85m/€28.4m (Fiorentina to Inter, July 2001)

The prospect of following Buffon was reportedly one factor behind Toldo rejecting a move to Parma during the great Italian goalkeeper merry-go-round of 2001. I Gialloblu signed Sebastien Frey from Inter instead, leading Toldo straight into the arms of I Nerazzurri for the same fee Parma had previously agreed with Fiorentina, who replaced the outgoing Italy international with Arsenal champion and Liverpool legend Alex Manninger.

18) Ugurcan Cakir – £23.8m/€27.5m (Trabzonspor to Galatasaray, September 2025)

The gloves of Fernando Muslera needed filling after a 14-year, 19-trophy spell at Gala, who decided against looking too far out for his replacement and instead settled on Trabzonspor No.1 Cakir.

19) Neto – £23.3m/€26m (Valencia to Barcelona, June 2019)

As part of the bloated Cillessen deal, Barcelona received Neto in exchange as back-up for Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

20) Bernd Leno – £22.3m/€25m (Bayer Leverkusen to Arsenal, June 2018)

Arsenal signing a German goalkeeper evoked all sorts of beautiful memories but Leno was neither mad nor Invincible. He replaced Petr Cech before himself being phased out for Ramsdale, as the circle of life between the Emirates sticks dictates.