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03 Sep 2026 10:00:37
I saw this article and in line with all the money we "wasted" over the past 2 years perhaps we have bought cheaply.
Most expensive Premier League transfer fees adjusted for inflation
1. Alan Shearer to Newcastle (1996) – £15m > £236.9m
2. Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United (2002) – £33.3m > £198.5m
3. Juan Sebastian Veron to Manchester United (2001) – £28.1m > £178.5m
4. Stan Collymore to Liverpool (1995) – £8.5m > £176.8m
5. Fernando Torres to Chelsea (2011) – £50m > £157.8m
6. Dennis Bergkamp to Arsenal (1995) – £7.5m > £156m
7. Andy Cole to Manchester United (1995) – £7m > £153.8m
8. Andriy Shevchenko to Chelsea (2006) – £30.8m > £152.6m
9. Dwight Yorke to Manchester United (1998) – £12.6m > £144.7m
10.
Paul Pogba to Manchester United (2016) – £89.3m > £141.6m
11. Wayne Rooney to Manchester United (2004) – £25.6m > £140.2m
12. Rio Ferdinand to Leeds (2000) – £18m > £139.8m
13. Tino Asprilla to Newcastle (1996) – £6.7m > £139.3m
14. Jack Grealish to Manchester City (2021) – £100m > £132.7m
15. Alexander Isak to Liverpool (2025) – £125m > £132.6m
16. Didier Drogba to Chelsea (2004) – £24m > £131.5m
17. Moises Caicedo to Chelsea (2023) – £115m > £131.2m
18. Romelu Lukaku to Chelsea (2021) – £97.5m > £129.4m
19. Angel Di Maria to Manchester United (2014) – £59.7m > £128.7m
20. Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea (2023)
Interested in people's comments.
{Ed001's Note - this is nonsense and has no relation to inflation at all. Absolute fantasy nonsense.}
03 Sep 2026 11:07:11
If you perhaps doubled those fees, you would be around the correct answer.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 11:28:22
I can understand inflation on the likes on food and gas but people? Really? How can inflation work on people? It's already stupid, the prices these players are going for.
It's more greedy agents, sponsors and clubs than anything else that the prices are sky rocketing.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 11:43:25
Doesn't work like that, chaps. And those figures are nonsense. And no, if u doubled them it wouldn't be like that
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 11:47:06
Actually, the more I read it, the more laughable those figures are. Jesus, who wrote the original article?
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 12:26:15
I think the only way to look at "inflation" in football is to compare what clubs generated back then and now!
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 12:48:38
I wrote a post a few weeks back applying inflation based on our revenues (as a proxy for all clubs).
Not perfect maths - that would require a thesis - but a decent approximation.
Agree4
03 Sep 2026 13:18:03
Whilst the annual inflation rate from 1996 to now is only about 2.5 - 3%, a lot of people forget that 'football inflation' is much higher; it's also harder to calculate for, as different aspects of the game seem to increase at different rates, but a relatively safe, rough number comes closer to about 9%. Some of these numbers certainly feel overinflated and inaccurate, especially considering that there's a 6.1% spread in his calculations, ranging from about 4.5 - 10.5% annually.
The author used total Premier League revenue growth as the basis for his model, which is not the most accurate way to calculate for inflation on transfers, and I'm sure he knows it, but also knows it would likely give him the most dramatic figures.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 13:58:54
To do it properly you would probably have to calculate each year independently based on averages across all transfers that season, removing outliers. Plus, I would be willing to wager half of these initial figures are incorrect anyway because there would be figures reported without add ons, or some with add ons that were never achieved etc.
Then, additionally, you have all the additional costs and fees that are never made publicly available and are likely just as volatile and inconsistent.
I don't trust "journalists" of today to tell me what day it is, let alone anything of substance like this.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 12:49:37
Say how you feel ED01! It's good for the soul!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣🫵🫵🫵
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 14:23:59
This is a perfect example of why ed002 disliked discussing financials.
What increase index is being proposed as "inflation"? For example RPI has increased from 152.4 in July 1996 to 419.1 in July 2026, which is 175% increase over 30 years. running close to 6% per annum. However, that is only one of the many indices we could use.
I am more concerned that despite spending £100m we are still discussing fielding players out of position. We really need get out of this 'square pegs in round holes' mentality.
We also need to appoint an industry savvy director of football. Preferably not an ex-player, who skipped school to play football and can barely negotiate driving in his supercar, let alone negotiate his way through a boardroom and football transfer politics.
03 Sep 2026 09:59:32
Good article by Paul Joyce in The Times today about Hughes’ tenure, but highlights how 2027 is the rebuild of the midfield, specifically mentioning Camara.
03 Sep 2026 11:18:27
Not really sure he says anything insightful in it. A bunch of potential excuses and how we cannot judge his tenure for another 18 months.
The facts are we dismantled a title-winning squad and now have one that will compete for top 4, despite spending half the GDP of a small country.
Yes, we've been unlucky with injuries and other circumstances, but there have been many windows and plenty of money available to react accordingly.
Agree4
03 Sep 2026 11:40:45
I think the thing we can all see as supporters is: he/they have taken a squad that won the title and now left us what feels like a long way behind Arsenal, City and maybe even Chelsea (harder to judge them without European football). He has taken a squad that, not perfect — few squads ever are — but had decent cover in every position and game changers on the bench, to one that is lopsided and clearly lacking in some areas.
I mean, is Frimpong going to be our no1 RB for most of this season? It looks that way. All this was done in 2 summers!!!
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 12:05:30
How did we dismantle a title winning squad, Pelican?
Didn't Diaz and TAA want to go? Were Konate, Robertson and Salah not on the decline? Wasn't Nunez just a mistake?
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 12:36:40
Rigsby - Believe it or not, the Sporting Director is accountable for the squad strength, with the exception of a club that is financially hamstrung, which we are certainly not.
If you agree that the squad strength is weaker than 22/23 and 23/24, then whether you want to say dismantled, deteriorated, diminished or disasterclass (Carra's word), I don't mind.
I know how you don't like certain words, Rigsby.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 13:08:32
I agree with Rigsby. Trent and Diaz wanted to leave so nobody dismantled anything.
Konate wanted stupid money for a guy who’d just had a season Djimi Traore would be ashamed of, so had to go.
Salah was absolutely awful last season to the point where he was a hindrance, and he was mouthing off to the press, causing problems in the camp. He had to go.
Robbo was constantly getting caught out on the wrong side and literally couldn’t stop a cross if his life depended on it. It was his time to go.
Nunez was everyone's whipping boy.
We tragically lost Jota, as everyone knows.
We’ve now replaced them with real quality players. I mean real quality. Wirtz, Isak, Barcola, Ekitike. Munoz looks like a shrewd signing too.
The only ones who you could question are Kerkez and Frimpong, but they’ve only had 1 season when even our best players weren’t performing. Players we’ve relied on for years like VVD, Salah, Robbo and Ali all had really poor seasons, so how can you expect any new signings to perform at their best level?
Like it or not, we bought Kerkez and Frimpong a year ago and we absolutely shouldn’t be replacing them before they’ve even had a chance to show us what they can do.
I despise this hate for Frimpong, especially. Why can’t we just support him and give the lad a chance? He was injured for most of last season and now we need to rely on him until Bradley is back. You don't become first choice in a team that won the German title going unbeaten all season if you are an awful player.
He just needs to find his feet with a new CB next to him and a new RW ahead of him. He has pace to burn, which could be really important as Iraola slowly coaxes Virgil out of his ‘let’s all retreat into our own box at every opportunity’ phase.
Long and short of it, yes we’ve lost players from a title winning team but we couldn’t have done much better in replacing them. Now we just need to let the manager do his job and figure out a way to get them firing.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 13:51:10
Riosstepover - Richard Hughes will never sleep with you.
Chiesa signing has proven to be a waste. Marmar cannot use his feet, which makes no sense as a Liverpool GK signing. Frimpong is not a RB or a RW. Could we have not done better than that to replace Trent? Kerkez is a bombing fullback, yet the previous coach wanted him to invert. What on earth was that about? We will see what his old coach Iraola now does with him. He was poor on Saturday. Wirtz was signed without a midfield plan behind him. In terms of coaching we have gone from from press-bait first Slot-ball to suffocate the opposition Iraola-ball. Diaz was replaced a year late. Salah will be replaced a year late. Please don't tell me we couldn't have done any better.
Some good things have been done too. Those should be rightly appreciated. Hugo, Isak, Barcola, Wirtz, Munoz and Rio is some attacking threat. Trey Nyoni is a talent and deserves a chance in midfield this season. The CB situation looks good, especially the young talent we have signed. The new young GK looks a talent too.
Seriously though, the proof will be in the pudding when we get to the next windows demanding a RB, midfielders that can actually tackle and pass and a specialist RW. Maybe even a goalkeeper after Alisson gets his autumn hamstring injury and we have to watch Marmar save nothing for months.
If that doesn't happen, I will be first to say that I was wrong. :)
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 14:42:09
I am fed up with the hate Frimpong gets on here. Whatever happened to the best supporters in the world?
And get over the players we 'lost'. Konate was an accident waiting to happen and most wanted him gone. Robertson and Salah were on a rapid decline and continued their downward trajectory at their new clubs.
Nunez was another pariah, but he split opinion.
Sammy Lee, Craig Johnston and Paul Walsh wouldn’t have got a look-in on here if they were playing today.
We need the team to gel and battle for each other. Some of our players may surprise a few on here this season.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 16:28:14
Ping Pong is a disaster signing. He cannot cross a ball and does not defend well, is often out of position and has lost the ball more times than anyone else.
What do we get from him?
Agree0
{Ed666's Note - bantz
03 Sep 2026 21:54:59
Well said, Rio.
St Etienne, in whose eyes are we the best supporters in the world? I think that myth was well and truly busted when we booed Trent.
Oh, and Frimpong was a complete and utter waste of a signing.
03 Sep 2026 08:44:06
For everyone crying, haven't four of PL's goals (literally 100%) come from the right side?
1.) Gakpo scored that screamer from right side of GK's centre
2.) Munoz won pen from right side
3.) Gakpo crossed from right for Isak, literally open net
4.) Munoz scored from right side
03 Sep 2026 09:02:22
I'd like to see more, but Gakpo on the right wasn't actually the disaster that many would have anticipated. He was forced to go on the outside and cross the ball a few times, and actually did a half-decent job.
Munoz actually has looked better on the right side than his natural left side as well, I can imagine that he would start there quite a few times for us.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 09:15:58
Indeed, Patrick, I don't see the disaster of Gakpo on the right, either. Now, there were some crosses he got wrong as well as being weak at tracking back.
But guess what to those who say he was a disaster? He would have done that if he was on the left, so again, where's the beef?
In addition, he was very effective overall in the second half and the way he cooked both Neco and Murillo for that cross is something I would like to see more of.
At the end of the day, both Vic and Cody can play either side, or is versatility suddenly a flaw?
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 09:04:04
Don't let the facts get in the way of some good hysteria, please. Away with you Livebird! This is strictly a "meltdown only zone".
Agree4
03 Sep 2026 09:26:33
Barcola is comfortable on the right too. It's not ideal that we didn't sign a specialist RW but the options available now that we are keeping Gakpo are certainly not a disaster.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 09:47:53
Would love to see Munoz on the right side tomorrow. Hopefully signing Barcola brings out the best of the forwards.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 10:17:57
The thing about Gakpo on either right or left, as we saw last season so many times, he does not look for the overlapping run... ever. The number of times Kerkez made good runs and Gakpo failed to find him, or simply ignored him, absolutely nullified that style of play. If that is what the manager wants... and I can only guess with Frimpong and Kerkez starting that is what we are looking for, Gakpo needs to be coached/told/be more aware and track back to cover.
This is not btw a Gakpo hating post. I like him as a player, I like his strength on the ball... and I am glad he did not go to Shitty.
But if he is going to work on either flank, there has to be something different.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 10:32:14
Adz, I’m not sure I agree. I think Gakpo and Kerkez are actually finding each other more this year. And Gakpo is also clearly trying to go outside more as well. It’s still early days but I’m going to wait to see if this improvement continues.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 12:03:39
Cody has shown excellent professionalism since he returned after the WC in a way that too many players don't these days. Happy to keep him even if he is likely to go off the boil.
03 Sep 2026 08:53:21
If they all come good then it’s a master stroke. If not then we are stuck with some very expensive players
Agree4
03 Sep 2026 09:06:54
"If they all come good then it’s a master stroke. If not then we are stuck with some very expensive players"
Irish, you could apply this maxim to any single player that anyone has bought. I would've loved to see Camara or Kone, Kayode/Aina/Palestra and Diomande/Minteh/Mbaye to have come in during this window, but they could also be some "very expensive" players we are stuck with.
It's disingenuous to question who we have bought whilst also lamenting those we haven't.
Agree12
03 Sep 2026 09:19:31
Spot on, Zed, esp. in that last paragraph. More importantly, if you look at the stat that 50% of signings made actually come good, hence it is literally 50/50 for a signing to play out.
Transfers are essentially gambles, and regardless of how hard and efficient your due diligence is, they may or may not pan out; hence, you're essentially in Vegas gambling.
The diff. here is that unlike gambling in Vegas, the house doesn't always win.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 11:51:11
I have or had very high hopes for Jaros. Hopefully he makes a full recovery soon so we can sell Mamardashvili, who has failed to impress so far.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 12:07:06
There are a fair few players in that list that probably won't fulfil their promise, but I'll wait until the season is much further along before passing any judgement. Give the new coaching crew time to do their stuff.
03 Sep 2026 07:42:25
When will Hughes actually go? The sooner the better. We need an adult in that job.
03 Sep 2026 08:14:54
I think he's gone, Chrisy. A DOF is now irrelevant till January, as far as I'm concerned.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 08:30:45
A DOF's job is not to just buy and sell players. He is the boss on how this club would operate on the field going forward.
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 08:39:12
The job of buying players should never stop. It’s a competitive market and you need to show how much you want someone so they choose you especially when many top footballers (and families) prefer Spain or London.
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 08:45:16
I know all that, but I don't care. I'm sure it will all be sorted. We won the league 17 months ago. We are Liverpool. We play Atletico next Wednesday. Let's enjoy what we've got.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 08:58:12
Karma is a Bitch, pretty sure Iraola decides how things operate on the field mate.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 09:08:36
An SD would also need to be involved in the team and assess together with the coach what kind of players are needed to further supplement the squad and which players are surplus to requirements. Something that our current one clearly did not do.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 09:07:00
Don't let common sense get in the way, Chewy.
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 09:31:44
Spot on, 1jj. The DOF job is the DOF job and all the functions that come with it.
And judging by the way the last set of holders of that post have conducted themselves in the past 4/5 years, I absolutely care about who we hire for that job. All the other stuff is just white noise.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 09:52:32
I could've sworn we'd won the league in the last 5 years.
As Klopp proved, the most important role at the club is Head Coach. Let Iraola get on with the job. We were all ecstatic with his appointment and most thought that was all that needed fixing.
I'm confident that our owners will appoint the right person to the role. They haven't got many things wrong during their tenure.
03 Sep 2026 08:29:41
Well that one side sorted out. 💪
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 08:40:53
I would argue that, in his pomp, Chiesa was considered a left winger as well! One of the best around at the time.
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 08:57:53
Could add Koumas left too?
Agree1
03 Sep 2026 08:59:16
Wrong arm.
Agree6
03 Sep 2026 09:00:02
Macko, I don’t know much of his time at Juventus, but certainly in the 2021 Euro finals, he was the best player in the tournament playing on the RW for eventual winners, Italy.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 09:36:17
That's the thing, MKS. Chiesa was so good he could play on both flanks comfortably. One of the stars of the Euros, as you pointed out.
And once touted as a 100m euro player that no one could afford at the time.
Sadly, that knee injury set him back. So has his move to LFC, which has set him back even further. Really sad.
Oh, and Munoz should be on the weaker arm as that is where he is doing his best work right now.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 11:31:37
I am more concerned about the lack of a forward to cover Isak.
Munoz has shown he is able to hold the right, even Gakpo looked decent there.
I suspect we’ll sign Minteh in Jan, and Munoz/Gakpo will have to cover cf at times.
This season offers a huge opportunity for someone like Koumas. From what I have seen, he has all the heart and workrate, but to me seems to like that quality required to really make a difference at that end of the pitch.
I am hoping he proves me wrong and becomes a reliable forward option.
From the little I have seen of Rio in pre-season and the opening games, he has a huge learning curve and probably isn’t ready for PL football yet. Again, I hope I am proven wrong.
03 Sep 2026 01:11:51
Top 10 net spend this window;
Liverpool £200m
Spurs £173m
Ipswich £173m
City £162m
Arsenal £138m
Hull £133m
Coventry £123m
Utd £101m
Brentford £95m
Fulham £70m
Top 8 net spend last 3 seasons:
Liverpool £422m
Arsenal £404m
Spurs £403m
Utd £296m
City £175m
Newcastle £110m
Chelsea +£4m profit
Villa +£45m profit
{Ed666's Note - All this money spent And still at least 3 players short of challenging
03 Sep 2026 05:22:17
FSG don’t spend.
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 06:20:44
3 of the top 5 most expensive PL footballers ever! Imagine that burden if they don’t work out. 😳
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 06:41:19
Again, another post that makes me remember what legendary work Klopp did! When we spent, we spent carefully. Even players that were shifted were sold at a healthy rate. Switch to the present day, we sell TAA for 10, Jones for 30, zero for Konate & so on. When people accused him of deep loyalty for Hendo for giving him a new contract, he shipped him, Fabinho, & replaced the entire midfield in one go.
The guy was a generational coach. The best I have seen. It is not that he did everything but his presence made others do their job well. Someone like Edwards & maybe Lijnders even end up thinking that it is because of them but it was still Klopp. He made them do their jobs better. Truly a legendary leader. Hopefully AI comes close!
Agree6
03 Sep 2026 06:59:13
Putting aside the 115, you’ve got to admire how City operate. Real quality in the door, never short of players, never short of quality, never any drama and apparently spend less than most net. 😂
Got to be some secret payments happening somewhere.
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 07:14:03
Our sales are less because our fringe players are crap to the outside world (Endo, Chiesa etc). Klopp had to work with a shoestring budget at Liverpool. It was always about selling a first teamer to buying a first teamer. FSG has never had a proper 25-man squad for any manager. A good first eleven followed by a poor and weak bench (from Shaqiri to Chiesa).
Agree2
03 Sep 2026 07:23:11
Stephen Caulker? Darwin Nunez? Naby Keita? Arthur Melo? Ozan Kabak? Ben Davies?
Some thought went into those transfers.
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 07:27:30
I have seen this about spending, though I fail to see how it is so much this summer. £106m on Barcola, was it £34m Munoz and approx £35m on the two young players? Araujo loan and Jacquet were bought in January. Barcola's potential full fee can't be included as the extra isn't paid yet. When you minus the sale of Curtis Jones, surely the figure is closer to £140m?
Also worth noting the number of players on huge contracts that have left the club in the past few seasons.
This summer alone, I would guess that the wage outlay before purchases was reduced by something like 750k to 1m a week.
I'm not disputing that the club has pumped in money the last 3 seasons, but I do feel figures can easily be manipulated to suit a narrative.
Cheers
Agree3
03 Sep 2026 08:05:46
Greggers, we agreed to buy Jacquet in January but the sale went through this summer so is included. You are correct about the huge wages saved. Plus, like others mentioned, a lot of the other teams have sold their assets very well.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 08:08:07
We’ve spent £84m net per window since Klopp left. I’d imagine a few teams have averaged more than that. When people see the money spent over the last three windows they forget the profit we made in the two before that. Makes the league win an even greater achievement.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 08:26:42
Well they should have spent some more in order to get the players we actually require.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 08:31:52
Excluding Salah, who else was on huge wages, compared to the players we’ve just purchased?
Agree0
{Ed025's Note - VVD, Gakpo and Grav to name 3..
03 Sep 2026 08:53:08
We need to stop harking back to Klopp like he was some kind of messiah who never made a mistake. He made plenty of mistakes and I'm sure he'd be the first to admit it.
Let's not forget in the 2 seasons before he left we finished 5th and 3rd. In Klopp's 9 year tenure we won the title once.
Slot won the title once (I won't entertain anyone who says 'but it was Klopp's team'. Tell me you know nothing about football without telling me you know nothing about football) and he finished 5th once and got sacked. He had to lift a team who had just gone from the ultimate high to the ultimate low in the space of 3 months whilst trying to bed in a host of new players, some of whom had arrived not in the best shape.
Our main player and talisman was revolting against him in public because he was playing crap and deservedly got dropped.
I'm not saying he shouldn't have been sacked or that he was better than Klopp, he obviously wasn't but I'm trying to add some context to these posts about how great Klopp was and people's unrealistic expectations since he left.
Klopp is a genius and one of the best managers we've ever had. He's up there with Shanks, Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish but even he got it wrong from time to time and needed patience before he got it right.
During Klopp's tenure we never once filled all the gaps in the squad in one transfer window. In fact I don't know of any team in the world who has ever done that. So why did we expect that to happen this summer?
Iraola has an excellent squad which is 100% capable of challenging for the title. He just needs to get them performing consistently enough to do it.
You don't need worldies in every position you're not playing PSG every week. You just need the team to be structured enough to beat the likes of Brentford, Bournemouth etc. with that bit of extra quality to get through the bigger and tighter games.
We have the extra quality but we don't have the structure, that's what Iraola was employed to bring.
Agree1
{Ed025's Note - wow...i thought he was a great manager RSO and you not only won things but played some great entertaining football myself mate, this seems like a post an Evertonian would send.. :)
03 Sep 2026 08:54:09
They haven't left Ed
Agree0
{Ed025's Note - oh sorry Irish i thought you meant that were still here..
03 Sep 2026 09:37:34
Indeed, Faith. These figures all came from the GoFundMe account the club put up years ago.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 09:42:02
Robertson and Konate were on £150k+, Elliott and Jones probably a combined £150k. Don’t forget Calvin Ramsey, the savings we will make on Irn Bru and haggis will be huge.
Agree0
03 Sep 2026 03:18:00
Exactly ed too much money spent on star players. 360m on Isak, Wirtz and Barcola. That's 6 60m players.
Agree0
{Ed666's Note - I agree and the squad would have been deeper for it. Oh well hindsight is a beautiful thing.
03 Sep 2026 04:14:01
Agreed Ed. I think another issue that we failed to address is to move players on. I was all for giving the players a clean slate once Andoni came in but it was quite clear after the preseason tour that Chiesa and Endo weren't favoured at all. How they are still with us at the end of the window just further highlights the incompetence of the STC. We could also have tried to sell both Ramsay or Elliott for low fees like we did for Baj but only managed to get loans for either of them.
Although I'm not so sure the numbers above are accurate. I would have thought that Spurs spent more since they replaced almost their entire starting 11. Granted a few are loans with obligations to buy but the numbers still seemed low to me
Agree0
{Ed666's Note - Endo will be gone in the summer if not January and I think we have Chiesa for life because he’s on absurd wages and no one’s going to take a risk on him with his injury record unless we subsidize his wages or give him a free. He has to go down as one of the biggest mistakes in Liverpool transfer history.
{Ed001's Note - this is nonsense and has no relation to inflation at all. Absolute fantasy nonsense.}
{Ed666's Note - bantz
{Ed025's Note - VVD, Gakpo and Grav to name 3..