The most recent transfer window saw records broken as, according to Transfermarkt, clubs in the English Premier League spent a colossal €2.24 billion — including massive deals for Antony (€95m to Manchester United), Wesley Fofana (€80m to Chelsea) and Darwin Nunez (€75m to Liverpool). Meanwhile, Italy‘s Serie A (€749m), France‘s Ligue 1 (€557m), Spain‘s LaLiga (€505m) and Germany‘s Bundesliga (€484m), spent a total of €2.67bn combined.
But among all that money changing hands were some truly odd moves. Here, ESPN’s writers assess the weirdest summer transfers that confused them the most.
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I mean, what the heck?! Nice fans rightly asked: who is Joe Bryan and what is he doing in a team aiming to challenge for the Ligue 1 title while playing in the Europa Conference League this season? The 28-year-old left-back arrived on loan from Fulham, having previously played for Bristol City, Plymouth and Bath (the latter two on loan.) It made no sense for a club like Nice, with loads of money and plenty of ambition, to sign an average player like him. He probably couldn’t believe his luck.
Overall, most of Nice’s transfer business was weird this window. The club’s obsession with signing British or ex-Premier League players was very strange. On top of Bryan, they also signed former Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey (31, free), Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel (35, €1m), ex-Chelsea midfielder Ross Barkley (28, free) and took 27-year-old winger Nicolas Pepe on loan from Arsenal, with 23-year-old defender Mads Bech Sorensen also joining for the season from Brentford. Sitting 12th place in Ligue 1, after three defeats in seven games, suggests the gamble may not have worked — Julien Laurens.
Chelsea were always going to face a difficult task in this window given two key factors: sanctions from the UK government imposed on previous Russian owner Roman Abramovich preventing them from speaking to potential new players until the takeover was completed at the end of May, and the club’s new owners needing time to immerse themselves in football, filling a void left by the departures of key transfer-related personnel. However, all that does not completely exonerate them from criticism for paying potential £63m to sign Brighton left-back Cucurella.
The Spain defender is a good player and has potential to improve, but Manchester City pulled out of a deal because they wouldn’t pay an asking price of around £50m. Yet Chelsea ended up paying £56m, with another £7m in add-ons, in part because they only wanted to loan Levi Colwill in return rather than allow him to join Brighton on a permanent basis. As one agent suggested to ESPN, Chelsea therefore effectively paid their own loan fee.
To top off the surreal feel to it all, Cucurella handed in a transfer request when City were interested, trying to force his exit from a club managed by Graham Potter … only to end up at a club now managed by Graham Potter. — James Olley.
