Manchester United and West Ham should be embarrassed to share the same favourite shop, while Liverpool and Manchester City generally do transfers right.<\/p>\n
Chelsea handing over yet more money for a Brighton player got us thinking: who is each Premier League team\u2019s preferred club to make signings from? Whose players have they spent the most money on over the years? Well\u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arsenal \u2013 Lille (\u00a3116.5m) Lille had been more than happy to hand over Pascal Cygan, Gervinho and Nicolas Pepe, laughing all the way to la banque.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Aston Villa \u2013 Everton (\u00a386m)<\/strong> That was that for Villa signings from Everton until Steven Gerrard insisted upon Lucas Digne in 2022. A couple of years later he was joined by Amadou Onana and friend of PSR, Lewis Dobbin<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Bournemouth \u2013 Leeds (\u00a350m) \u201cLewis has impressed since earning his spot in the Leeds United first team and we feel that he can continue his rapid progress,\u201d said former Cherries chief executive\u00a0Neill Blake upon the \u00a310m capture of Cook in 2016.<\/p>\n That was undeniably a more difficult yet less lucrative exit for Leeds to cope with than those of Luis Sinisterra and Tyler Adams years later.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Brentford \u2013 Liverpool (\u00a370.5m) \u00a0<\/p>\n Brighton \u2013 Leeds (\u00a340m) \u00a0<\/p>\n Burnley \u2013 Manchester City (\u00a325m) With that said, a healthy profit should be turned on James Trafford soon, while Ben Mee as a free agent was worth infinitely more than the combined efforts of Joe Hart and Aro Muric.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Chelsea \u2013 Brighton (\u00a3240m) But in usurping Leicester\u2019s place as official Really Well-Run Premier League Club Below The Elite, Brighton have had to embrace taking regular phone calls from Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n In total, Chelsea have paid close to \u00a3300m to poach Brighton\u2019s manager, assistant manager, two first-team coaches, goalkeeping coach, head of recruitment, head of recruitment\u2019s replacement, assistant head of recruitment, goalkeeper, right-back, midfielder and forward.<\/p>\n Pedro completes the cool dozen to have swapped the Amex for West London over the last three years. Todd Boehly could have saved himself the bother and bought the Seagulls in the first place.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Crystal Palace \u2013 Liverpool (\u00a355m) The Reds took full advantage, extracting from Selhurst Park two of the biggest fees the south London club has ever paid for a player.<\/p>\n Christian Benteke finished with a respectable enough record for the Eagles but proved that transfer records should never be broken on a Liverpool player<\/strong><\/a>, while Mamadou Sakho probably wasn\u2019t worth \u00a326m.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Everton \u2013 Barcelona (\u00a371.4m)<\/strong> If Real Madrid or Barcelona are willing to sell a player it should raise a few red flags<\/strong><\/a> in the collective minds of a recruitment team otherwise stupefied by the idea of brushing shoulders with the elite.<\/p>\n There were no such discerning voices speaking loudly enough when Marco Silva and Marcel Brands started to open doors which should have been left locked. It worked with Gerard Deulofeu, but less so with Digne, Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Fulham \u2013 Everton (\u00a337m) It has landed Fulham a lovely Alex Iwobi, a delightful Andy Johnson and John Collins among a handful of others over the years, with only Arsenal, Southampton, Spurs and Chelsea ever selling to the Cottagers more often.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Leeds \u2013 Red Bull Salzburg (\u00a351.3m)<\/strong> \u00a0<\/p>\n Liverpool \u2013 Southampton (\u00a3178m) Liverpool have not returned to St Mary\u2019s since having their wrists slapped over an illegal approach for Virgil van Dijk<\/strong><\/a> in January 2018, although that might be more down to Southampton\u2019s general plight rather than a fear of punitive action.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manchester City \u2013 Aston Villa (\u00a3148m)<\/strong> Darius Vassell did and was the best of the lot.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manchester United \u2013 Ajax (\u00a3187.8m)<\/strong> Neither of them could hold an Amsterdam-based candle to Jesper Olsen. And even Lisandro Martinez is too perennially injured to be an actual butcher.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Newcastle \u2013 Real Sociedad (\u00a363m) \u00a0<\/p>\n Nottingham Forest \u2013 Newcastle (\u00a355m) Jonjo Shelvey and Daryl Murphy did not.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sunderland \u2013 Spurs (\u00a334m) Darren Bent accounted for almost half of that total once Daniel Levy stopped f**king around, but comfortably this story\u2019s best tale comes from the summer of 2008.<\/p>\n Roy Keane should never have been able to call out Spursiness with a straight face<\/strong><\/a> after building Sunderland\u2019s tilt at survival around a good old-fashioned north London raid. He missed out on Younes Kaboul then but Dick Advocaat did no such thing seven years later.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Spurs \u2013 Lyon (\u00a378.8m) Then again, the buyer\u2019s remorse from taking Tanguy Ndombele and Clinton Njie at great expense might still be pretty strong, and not even enough to counteract the signing of Hugo Lloris.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Most clubs might have blocked the French side\u2019s number by the time Arsenal targeted Lille centre-half Gabriel Magalhaes in summer 2020, but Mikel Arteta must have sensed that the winning lottery ticket was coming after a series of expensive gambles backfired.<\/p>\n
The path from Goodison to Villa Park was well-trodden in the 1980s as\u00a0Derek Mountfield, Warren Aspinall, Andy Gray and Steve McMahon all shuffled down from one of English football\u2019s emerging forces to what was a fading giant.<\/p>\n
They snared Andoni Iraola despite intense interest from Elland Road<\/a><\/strong> but Bournemouth had already shown how the sands had shifted between the two clubs in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
Few clubs have ever been quite as happy to pay that Liverpool tax<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The Seagulls borrowed a fair few Leeds players during their Football League years, including\u00a0Bradley Johnson and\u00a0Billy Paynter. But the \u00a340m handed over for Georginio Rutter remains a club-record signing<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>There are worse trade links to establish but there is a sense that Burnley could exploit it more: that \u00a325m is entirely made up of transfer fees for goalkeepers.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The \u00a3212m Chelsea have given Leicester over the years trying to replicate the magic of N\u2019Golo Kante\u2019s move has finally been surpassed.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Before Brentford and Bournemouth there was Crystal Palace, who were seemingly intoxicated by the mere thought of being privileged enough to sit across from Liverpool at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
It might go against the accepted wisdom but generally speaking it is far better to buy more frequently and lavishly from clubs down the food chain. The key is usually to poach the best talent from below rather than picking up the dregs from above.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>On the other hand, looking up in an alphabetical Premier League table and deciding to source signings from there seems quick but inadvisable.<\/p>\n
Jesse Marsch will be made to answer for his crimes one day.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Who knew the one-month loan of Paul Jones would trigger an obsession which would eventually help crown Liverpool as European and Premier League champions?<\/p>\n
The Jack Grealish money obviously does a fair amount of heavy lifting but none of James Milner, Gareth Barry or Fabian Delph came cheap either.<\/p>\n
Erik ten Hag will be made to answer for his crimes one day. And he might call Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to the stand as a key witness considering Donny van de Beek was arguably as disastrous a signing as Antony.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>What a shame Alexander Isak would \u201clike to leave\u201d<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Elliot Anderson and Chris Wood helped Nottingham Forest transform from relegation candidates to European qualifiers.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The club-record capture of Habib Diarra has pushed Strasbourg into a conversation no-one is actually having, but Spurs will take some shifting from their spot as Sunderland\u2019s preferred dealer.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Perhaps Spurs will be keeping a closer eye than first thought on the outcome of Lyon\u2019s legal battle against relegation to Ligue 2<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n