Premier League clubs spent around £3.44 billion — nearly 47 billion Norwegian kroner — on 154 players this summer. The Athletic has ranked every one of them from worst to best. At the top: a goalkeeper who cost £7.5 million. At the bottom: the classic panic buys.
A record summer: £3.44 billion
The previous record was set just twelve months ago, when clubs spent £3.14 billion. Summer 2026 comfortably smashed that figure. The Athletic ranked all the signings not just on quality, but also on price, their importance to the team and whether they actually fill a genuine gap in the squad.
Top of the class: Emiliano Martinez to Chelsea
The Argentine moved from Aston Villa to Chelsea for a reported £7.5 million on a two-year contract — and took first place.
He is cheeky, cocky and thoroughly irritating, but he is also still a very good goalkeeper. Still among the top three in the league, and a player Chelsea have been crying out for for years.
The Athletic
Where Robert Sanchez was hesitant and erratic, Martinez is aggressive, proactive and solid. The fee is roughly what Chelsea normally spend on a year's wages for a back-up winger.
The rest of the top five
- Emiliano Martinez — Aston Villa to Chelsea, £7.5m
- Bruno Guimaraes — Newcastle to Arsenal, £75m. A lot of money for a 28-year-old, but the signing gives Arsenal a ready-made leader in midfield. Pure, proven Premier League quality.
- Mamadou Sangare — Lens to Brentford, £38.5m. Named in the Ligue 1 team of the season and outstanding on his debut against Spurs. A midfielder who both breaks up play and creates.
- Elliot Anderson — Nottingham Forest to Manchester City, £116m. Won the ball back 306 times last season, the most in Europe's top five leagues.
- Bradley Barcola — PSG to Liverpool, £123m. 39 goals and 35 assists in 152 appearances for PSG. Hardly a £123 million player, but a magnificent signing nonetheless.
The most expensive signings
| Player | Transfer | Fee (£m) | The Athletic ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enzo Fernandez | Chelsea → Manchester City | 125 | 9 |
| Bradley Barcola | PSG → Liverpool | 123 | 5 |
| Morgan Rogers | Aston Villa → Chelsea | 117 | top 20 |
| Elliot Anderson | Nottingham Forest → Manchester City | 116 | 4 |
| Sandro Tonali | Newcastle → Tottenham | 100 | 94 |
| Ayyoub Bouaddi | Lille → Manchester City | 86 | top 20 |
| Bruno Guimaraes | Newcastle → Arsenal | 75 | 2 |
| Carlos Baleba | Brighton → Manchester United | 65-70 | top 25 |
All fees are rounded figures in millions of pounds sterling, excluding add-ons. The exchange rate used is around 13.5 kroner to the pound.
The most expensive is not the best
At £125 million, Enzo Fernandez is the summer's most expensive signing, but only ninth on the list. The Athletic points out that Chelsea paid £107 million for him in January 2023 without him ever reaching the highest level at Stamford Bridge. That said, he will probably flourish in that City team.
It is worse for Sandro Tonali. Tottenham's £100 million outlay on the Newcastle midfielder earned him only 94th place in the rankings — one of the clearest signs of how out of control transfer fee inflation has become.
Bottom of the class: Mykhailo Mudryk
The Ukrainian joined Tottenham on loan from Chelsea on deadline day, with a £75 million option to buy. He has not played professional football since November 2024.
We simply cannot see Mudryk achieving much at Spurs. If they actually exercise the £75 million option, I will give up journalism and retrain as a welder.
The Athletic
The bottom end
- Emmanuel Emegha (Strasbourg → Chelsea, £21m): last on the list. Four goals in ten Ligue 1 appearances last season, and no obvious place in Chelsea's squad — but a seven-year contract.
- Loum Tchaouna (Burnley → Coventry, £20m): two goals and one assist in the Premier League. Quick, but with no end product.
- Jonah Kusi-Asare (Bayern → Fulham, £5m): 49 league minutes played last season, rewarded with a five-year contract.
- Liam Delap (Chelsea → Nottingham Forest, £50m): more yellow cards (34) than goals (28) in senior football, and a scoring drought spanning his last 26 Chelsea appearances.
- Alejandro Garnacho (Chelsea → Aston Villa, loan): Villa's annual loan signing of a failed United or Chelsea winger. Will not get into the side ahead of teenager George Hemmings.
The bargains in the middle
Several clubs did smart business without spending big: Antonio Silva from Benfica to Bournemouth for £25.6 million, Gonzalo Garcia from Real Madrid to Fulham for £34.2 million, Piero Hincapie permanently to Arsenal for £34 million and Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace to Chelsea for £52 million — the last described as the least Chelsea-like signing imaginable, and sensible for precisely that reason.
Youri Tielemans to Manchester United for £35 million, by activating a clause, is another example of how price and position do not go hand in hand in these rankings.
Sources
The rankings are taken from The Athletic's review of all Premier League signings in the summer 2026 window, published on 2 September 2026, supplemented by transfer fees from BBC Sport and The National. The figures are reported and rounded.