We put it to you that despite a 33-year-old Mohamed Salah driving Liverpool to the title as great advances in sports science have made the ‘age is but a number’ idiom more true in the Premier League than ever before, this has been the most ageist transfer window in history.
Inferior but younger footballers have been signed in the hope they can fulfil their potential rather than having already reached it, with re-sale value so plainly more important than their ability to hit the ground running.
These ten players are victims of this prejudice; they would have seen far more interest in their services this summer without this new obsession with youth.
Jean-Philippe Mateta (Crystal Palace)
There have been murmurs of interest from Liverpool and Manchester United in Mateta, but nothing concrete with both instead opting for unproven strikers in Hugo Ekitike and Benjamin Sesko.
One or both of them may turn out to be worth the £70m-odd, but patience will almost certainly be required if we’re to see them supersede or even match what we’re very confident Mateta would have produced on day dot.
As a striker with the attractive combination of knowing his game inside out, looking about as comfortable as a Premier League line-leader as anyone around and also having relatively little football in his 28-year-old legs, Mateta seemed the ideal option.
He’s only played 292 senior games to Sesko’s 210 despite being six years his senior.
Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa)
The ageism is particularly odd when it comes to goalkeepers – especially when coming from Manchester United. They’re said to currently be deciding whether to sign someone “for the future” like Royal Antwerp’s Senne Lammens or one of Gianluigi Donnarumma – who’s only 26, FFS – or 32-year-old Martinez.
They should know better than anyone after signing Edwin van der Sar at 34 that an older goalkeeper is less ‘over the hill’ than looking down from it. He kept 135 clean sheets in 266 games for United, winning four Premier League titles and the Champions League before retiring arguably too early as a 40-year-old.
Jarrod Bowen (West Ham)
If Bowen did want a move he’s been foisted by the blend of being 28 years old and playing for a team underperforming to such an extent that they, and thus he, barely register in the minds of big-club sporting directors who could surely do with a guy who’s registered double figures for goals and assists in both of the last two seasons.
The captaincy and the disappointment of his father-in-law probably means he’s not all that interested in a move anyway, even in the knowledge that his chances of being picked by Thomas Tuchel would improve stratospherically if he extricated himself from a football club that looks set to continue to drag him down with them.
Daniel Munoz (Crystal Palace)
There’s a very good case to be made for Munoz being the best full-back in the Premier League last season. Only Idrissa Gueye (181) got more than Munoz’s 167 combined tackles and interceptions, despite the Colombian being arguably better renowned for endlessly bombing down the wing and swinging the ball into the box. Only Pedro Porro (57) Trent Alexander-Arnold (53) created more than his 46 chances from full-back.
We have absolutely no doubt that United would have gone all in for Munoz as the perfect right wing-back for Ruben Amorim’s system, while Liverpool may also have plumped for him over Jeremie Frimpong, had he been 25 and not 28.
READ MORE: Transfer rumour ranking: Are Man City planning huge moves amid big-name exits?
Alex Iwobi (Fulham)
We actually think Iwobi, like almost all of his teammates and his manager, is exactly where he needs to be, but there definitely would have been swathes of interest in a hugely versatile midfielder on the back of a season in which he contributed nine goals and six assists had he a) not already had a go at one of the big clubs, and b) still been in his mid-twenties.
Idrissa Gueye (Everton)
Casemiro has provided the best evidence in the last couple of years that the midfield destroyer role is a younger man’s game than most positions in modern football. But Gueye has done excellent work to bust that myth, kicking shins and being more of a nuisance than ever at the tender age of 34.
Ten years younger and Everton would have a nine-figure asset on their hands.
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa)
Arsenal wanted him in January before landing Gyokeres this summer, Amorim wanted him over Sesko, and with Chelsea also seemingly securing their striker future while Liverpool’s will-they-won’t-they Isak chase is very unlikely to see them pivot to Watkins, it looks as though he’s missed the boat for a move to one of the biggest boys.
As we do, he must be thinking he could have done at least as good a job as any of those alternatives.
Jack Grealish (Manchester City)
We’re not saying we’re not delighted by Grealish’s loan move to Everton and both hope and believe he will thoroughly enjoy himself there, not least because he’s guaranteed football in a World Cup year. But it’s also quite the remarkable downgrade for the first £100m Premier League player who played a crucial role in Manchester City’s treble-winning season in 2022/2023.
Kaoru Mitoma (Brighton)
We look at his quite brilliant ability to beat defenders with the ball at his feet and his ten goals and four assists in the Premier League last season and can only think that Arsenal signed Noni Madueke after his seven goals and four assists because he’s 23 and Mitoma’s 28.
Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa)
It’s hard to watch Tielemans with his superb touch, vision and ability to find pockets of space to receive and play the ball from and think he wouldn’t improve pretty much any team in the Premier League.
He should absolutely be playing Champions League football and doesn’t look like a footballer for whom wear and tear will be much of an issue.