Odegaard next? The best XI signed from Premier League champions includes three Arsenal buys | OneFootball

Manchester United have been linked with Martin Odegaard and Arsenal are under pressure to sell – he could find room in a champion sales XI.

It is thought that Arsenal would be willing to do business over their captain at around £87m, with Manchester United potentially making plans for a future without Bruno Fernandes.

The Gunners will likely need to sanction one first-team sale this summer, and could do so after finally ending their wait to lift the title.

Anyone who jumps the Emirates ship will hope to break into this: an XI of the best signings made from Premier League champions.

GOALKEEPER: Petr Cech (Chelsea to Arsenal, 2015)

“He will save them 12 or 15 points a season,” said Chelsea captain John Terry of the impact Arsenal might expect from Cech as he packed his bags to head across London in 2015.

The Gunners finished the prior season on 75 points, then collected 71, 75, 63 and 70 points respectively in the four campaigns Cech spent at the Emirates.

The £10m signing cannot be held responsible for the wayward mathematical prognostications of others, but did won a fifth FA Cup and fourth Golden Gloves award in his three seasons as a regular starter, providing an accomplished bridge between the eclectic eras of Wojciech Szczesny and Bernd Leno.

RIGHT-BACK: William Gallas (Chelsea to Arsenal, 2006)

Both Willian and David Luiz made the previously rare direct journey from Chelsea to Arsenal after Cech – apropos of nothing, Edu has been blacklisted by his own current employers – but before Gallas in 2006 it was George Graham who last crossed the divide in that direction 40 years before.

The four years Gallas spent at the Emirates will largely be remembered for one thing but his existential crisis at Birmingham unfairly clouds an accomplished spell in which he served as an admittedly divisive captain.

Similarly controversial was his adoption of the No.10 shirt, an honour he briefly fulfilled when becoming Arsenal’s third-highest scorer in their run to the 2009 Champions League semi-finals.

Gallas carelessly lost the armband due to an interview in which he questioned the younger segments of the dressing room, before he left in a way that echoed his arrival in part-exchange for Ashley Cole: with a dispute over pay.

CENTRE-HALF: Nathan Ake (Chelsea to Bournemouth, 2017)

When ruminating over current players who might be best suited for the transition into coaching, look no further than a defender who has sat under the learning trees of Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho, Rafael Benitez and Quique Sanchez Flores by the age of 31.

Ake has four Premier League winner’s medals but never came close to meeting the threshold to qualify for one in his two seasons flirting with a champion calibre Chelsea first team.

A single substitute cameo in the penultimate game of the 2014/15 top-flight season and pair of similarly late appearances two years later gave Ake a hunger only Manchester City could feasibly have sated.

CENTRE-HALF: Robert Huth (Chelsea to Middlesbrough, 2006)

With a second Premier League winner’s medal in his back pocket – and the hopes of a third rendered infinitesimal by a career path featuring Middlesbrough, Stoke and Leicester – Huth desired a fresh challenge in the mid-2000s.

Wigan and Everton heard the German’s admission that he was “not happy” with his peripheral Chelsea role and they soon lodged offers. But it was Gareth Southgate who swayed it for Boro due to the manager’s history as a centre-half.

While Huth suffered with injuries on Teesside, he was a welcome addition to the defence and was sold for almost as much as Boro paid for him after three years.

LEFT-BACK: Oleksandr Zinchenko (Manchester City to Arsenal, 2022)

Perhaps no player has suffered from the sport’s stylistic shift as indelibly as Zinchenko.

The relentless speed with which Arsenal outgrew him was mirrored by the pace at which he and Gabriel Jesus helped transform a Champions League qualification also-ran into Premier League title challengers.

“When they came in after two or three weeks, because of where they have been, they said we can win this league,” Mikel Arteta once noted of the signings of Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus, a crucial signpost in the club’s metamorphosis.

But while Jesus still ploughs an uninspiring furrow up front, Zinchenko’s brand of technical prowess as an inverted left-back was entirely nerfed by a general Premier League move towards overt physicality and power which Arsenal themselves led, to the point that even struggling Nottingham Forest could find no place for him.

Zinchenko walked so Piero Hincapie could run – probably just to retrieve a ball for someone to whip in from a corner.

RIGHT-WINGER: Cole Palmer (Manchester City to Chelsea, 2023)

Chelsea have thrown enough expensive manure at the walls over the course of their entire history, but especially so in the last few years of Clearlake rule. And for a time it was only Palmer that really stuck.

A few others have since joined him as proof that money can buy you something close to happiness, if happiness actually constitutes owning absurdly gifted young footballers for a ludicrous number of years. But Palmer was the poster boy of the transfer philosophy for a while.

The manager didn’t actually want him but one of Chelsea’s 427 sporting directors sensed an opportunity to capitalise on Palmer’s lack of game time at Manchester City. Within a single season at Stamford Bridge he surpassed his 41 career appearances under Pep Guardiola and has rarely looked back since.

CENTRAL MIDFIELDER: N’Golo Kante (Leicester to Chelsea, 2016)

Not since Eric Cantona in 1992 and 1993 had an outfielder won English top-flight league titles for different clubs in consecutive years. Then along came Kante, the unknown replacement for Esteban Cambiasso and unmitigated upgrade on John Obi Mikel.

The Frenchman took an ostensible step down to consolidate his place atop the Premier League summit. The jump from Leicester’s mean-reverting sinking ship to a Chelsea vessel approaching a higher tide was timed to perfection – and meant that in his first two English top-flight seasons Kante’s only defeats were to the Arsenal bullet he dodged twice, Liverpool, Spurs, Crystal Palace and Manchester United.

The idea of Chelsea spending £32m so efficiently in the modern day is absurd – and it was only 10 years ago.

CENTRAL MIDFIELDER: Douglas Luiz (Manchester City to Aston Villa, 2019)

A Manchester City transfer cheat code staple, the Etihad club eventually earned around £21m from the 2019 sale of a player who never represented them.

Aston Villa paid £12.5m for Douglas Luiz, sold him to Juventus for £42.3m five years later, and sent a chunk of that fee to Manchester City as part of a sell-on clause. The Brazilian has ultimately found himself back at Villa Park on loan in 2026.

It is where Douglas Luiz seems most settled, patrolling an Unai Emery midfield and contemplating European nights in the West Midlands. Everyone has their kinks so let’s not shame him.

LEFT WINGER: Damien Duff (Chelsea to Newcastle, 2006)

Loved by Claudio Ranieri’s mother and most certainly admired by Jose Mourinho, Duff nevertheless felt compelled to jump from Chelsea before potentially being pushed.

The winger made a respectable 125 appearances in three years with the Blues yet could not resist the overtures of Newcastle, much to his subsequent regret.

And while his stay on Tyneside ended with relegation, the Irishman won the Intertoto Cup and got to be managed by Nigel Pearson. Twice!

CENTRE-FORWARD: Teddy Sheringham (Manchester United to Tottenham, 2001)

An incredibly popular (with his own fanbase) English, Golden Boot-winning Tottenham striker who entered his 30s without a major honour to match his goalscoring prowess, forced to leave north London to complete his career ambitions, who four years later returned with numerous trophies and trinkets in tow.

Sheringham never dropped into the Championship like Harry Kane might if he is completely faithful to the bit. And his second spell at White Hart Lane only solidified the curse as dear Edward helped take Spurs into a League Cup final they lost to a Blackburn side they finished higher than and beat in the Premier League a month before.

But the reigning PFA Player and FWA Footballer of the Year also helped Spurs to their highest Premier League finish in six years, even if Sheringham’s relationship with Glenn Hoddle did suffer somewhat as a result.

CENTRE-FORWARD: Dion Dublin (Manchester United to Coventry, 1994)

“The boy has made a decision which pleases me immensely,” said Alex Ferguson after learning that Dublin had picked First Division runners-up Manchester United over mid-table stragglers Chelsea and Everton in 1992.

The forward would have doubtless played more often at either of the other two teams; in two years at Old Trafford he made just 15 appearances and failed to even qualify for a Premier League winner’s medal in either 1993 or 1994 – although he was given special dispensation for the former.

By that point the Dubesman sought, if not greener pastures, then some he could at least frequent more often. Coventry showed him the stairs going up to the bedroom and one record fee later, Dublin was Highfield Road-bound.