Fofana, Antony and the five most inflated summer transfer fees

Stuart Telford

• Updated: 1 Sep 2022 13:20 CDT
• 4 min read

Hundreds of millions have exchanged hands in the summer transfer window, but did everyone get value for money?

The Premier League has now spent more than €2 billion on transfers; a record for the division and more than the next three biggest spenders - Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1 - put together.

But cash and value are not the same thing. Football Transfers looks at five players with some of the biggest margins between their market value and what their new employers paid for them.

* Value = calculated using our sophisticated inhouse algorithm/Fee = what the player actually moved for

Wesley Fofana to Chelsea

Fee: €93m

Value: €35m

Nobody is questioning the idea that Wesley Fofana has a high ceiling. You can't get capped up to under-21 level with world champions France without having one. But Chelsea have broken the transfer record for a defender in acquiring him from Leicester.

This is a player who played a whole seven Premier League games last season after breaking his leg last August. Chelsea have paid £70m/€81m up front, with a further £10m/€12m to follow in add-ons, taking Fofana's fee past the one Manchester United paid Leicester for Harry Maguire in 2019.

Antony to Man Utd

Fee: €99m

Value: €36m

Antony certainly looks a player, his tight ball control and silky skills are easy on the eye and a scary watch for opposition defenders before a game, but the Brazilian is as much style as substance so far in his career.

Still only 22, Antony's 12 goals and 10 assists in all competitions for Ajax last season came in at a rate of one every 115 minutes he played - certainly not a record to be sniffed at, but perhaps not worth paying more than three times his market value for.

Marc Cucurella to Chelsea

Fee: €72m

Value: €45m

Chelsea have been the biggest spenders in world football this summer, Fofana's arrival taking their total outlay to €267m, but for Cucurella to have cost the next-most after Fofana in a window that also saw Raheem Sterlin and Kalidou Koulibaly recruited is slightly surreal.

Cucurella is a fine left-back, and one whom Chelsea beat Manchester City to the signature of, but he had one goal and one assist in the Premier League for Brighton last season, despite regularly lining up as wing-back under Graham Potter.

Darwin Nunez to Liverpool

Fee: €99m

Value: €29m

Darwin Nunez may have scored six goals in 10 Champions League games with Benfica last season, but to put his €99m fee in context, let's consider the fact that Erling Haaland - a player with 23 Champions League goals in 19 matches - cost Manchester City €60m.

Haaland has raced to nine goals in just five Premier League outings this season. Darwin, after opening his account against Fulham, has been watching on from the sidelines after headbutting Crystal Palace centre-back Joachim Andersen.

Alexander Isak to Newcastle

Fee: €73m

Value: €42m

Another young striker, and another with admittedly high potential, Alexander Isak is now Newcastle's record signing after arriving at St. James' Park from Real Sociedad in a €73m deal.

Dortmund let Isak leave for Spain in 2019 with Haaland inbound, but while he has impressed in fits and spurts, he has only hit double digits for goals in one out of three seasons since - and it wasn't the most recent one, when he scored six in 32 outings.