Manchester United could set a new record for the biggest sell-on fee received if Mason Greenwood gets his \u00a360m move. Even Chelsea would be jealous.<\/p>\n
That Greenwood deal really could be huge for Manchester United this summer<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 5) Dominic Solanke \u2013 \u00a37.2m<\/strong> Their modern success has been built on the foundations of prescient sales, impactful signings, add-ons and perhaps soon even buy-backs<\/strong><\/a> as they safeguard and future-proof their position at the forefront of the market.<\/p>\n Liverpool had one such option on Solanke but little reason to explore it for years after he left to join Bournemouth. Only 18 months after the England international moved to the south coast, the Cherries were relegated to the Championship.<\/p>\n That arguably accelerated Solanke\u2019s development. Two seasons in the second tier produced 44 goals in 16 assists in 86 appearances as he rediscovered his scoring touch and refined his overall game.<\/p>\n But it was the appointment of Andoni Iraola which really moved Bournemouth and Solanke to the next level. The 2023\/24 season marked his first Premier League hat-trick and Player of the Month award, attracting interest from Spurs.<\/p>\n Liverpool could have hijacked that club-record deal but they preferred to sit back and wait for a healthy pay-out to land in their bank account courtesy of a clause entitling them to 20% of any profits Bournemouth made on his sale.<\/p>\n If they had anything about them, the Reds would have engaged in a bidding war before pulling out to artificially drive up the price and their subsequent proceeds. Edwards was probably busy fiddling with the aircon<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 4) Michael Keane \u2013 \u00a37.5m It was very much the spiritual contrast to Cristiano Ronaldo giving John O\u2019Shea the runaround<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n A few loans later and Keane was sold to Burnley for \u00a32.5m, much to Joyce\u2019s disappointment.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be fair to Van Gaal, I met him in a bar in Portugal after he\u2019d left and he said \u2018you were right about Michael Keane, I was wrong\u2019,\u201d Joyce added in an interview years ago, by which point Keane had moved on to Everton for a cool \u00a325m.<\/p>\n Manchester United raked in a decent amount as a result but they were actually favourites to sign Keane themselves when the auction commenced in summer 2017<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Jose Mourinho instead settled for Victor Lindelof, who would outlast the Portuguese and about seven other managers at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 3) Raheem Sterling \u2013 \u00a39m The Hoops picked him up as a 10-year-old and navigated interest from far and wide well into Sterling\u2019s teenage years, going as far as considering giving the forward a first-team debut at 14.<\/p>\n But his departure was inevitable and Liverpool were the only club willing to offer \u00a3500,000 up front with up to \u00a32m more in bonuses.<\/p>\n That deal was ratified during the reign of Rafael Benitez, with Sterling breaking through under Kenny Dalglish before flourishing due to the threat of being sent on the first plane home by Brendan Rodgers.<\/p>\n After three seasons in the Anfield first team delivered a monumental title bottling as its peak, Sterling engaged in a bitter and controversial exit plan culminating in rejected contract offers, two snubbed Manchester City offers and the withdrawal from a pre-season tour squad and two days of training due to an apparent illness.<\/p>\n The \u00a349m Liverpool eventually held out for made Sterling the most expensive English footballer in history at the time, while securing QPR some extra funds on top of the parachute payments they would soon receive due to relegation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 2) Kevin de Bruyne \u2013 \u00a310m And ever the politician, Mourinho made it sound like a masterclass in problem-solving and negotiation.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have a player knocking on your door and crying every day that he wants to leave then you have to make a decision,\u201d he said in summer 2015, shortly before Wolfsburg made a gargantuan profit on the deadwood they inherited from Stamford Bridge 18 months prior.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Chelsea did a very good job. If De Bruyne stayed here, not happy, not motivated, wanting to leave, he stays here one more year and then we sell him for less than 50 per cent what we sold him for. In that moment it was very good business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If selling De Bruyne immediately or after another year were indeed Mourinho and Chelsea\u2019s only options then it is difficult to argue they took the wrong course.<\/p>\n But one-and-a-half seasons in the Bundesliga were more than enough for De Bruyne to prove his worth and improve his value, to the extent that Chelsea\u2019s add-on actually exceeded the fee they paid to sign the Belgian from Genk in the first place.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 1) Tino Livramento \u2013 \u00a315m There might not be many Academy graduates who make the grade for the Blues but Chelsea have enough alumni dotted around \u2013 and stocks in most if not all of them \u2013 to take advantage somehow.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s probably the best academy in the world that anyone would want to go to and develop,\u201d Livramento himself said when he took his diploma to Southampton. \u201cMaybe one day,\u201d he added of the prospect of Chelsea activating a \u00a350m buy-back clause<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n That never made sense after 34 appearances and an injury-disrupted spell on the coast, but Newcastle were willing to take the \u00a332m plunge in August 2023.<\/p>\n A sliding sell-on clause meant Chelsea were due almost half of that sum, meaning an initial \u00a35m sale ended up netting them \u00a320m in the long run.<\/p>\n
It is vanishingly rare for any transfer to have been completed in the last two decades without a Michael Edwards clause inserted which in some way benefits Liverpool<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>As\u00a0former reserve team manager Warren Joyce once had it, Keane \u201cplayed against Real Madrid on a pre-season tour and Gareth Bale gave him a bit of a chasing,\u201d so Louis van Gaal decided against integrating him into the first team.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It goes down as the biggest Academy sale in Liverpool history<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0but the role of QPR cannot be airbrushed from Sterling\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>It is often held as one of Chelsea\u2019s biggest transfer mistakes but things could actually have been far worse.<\/p>\n\n
<\/strong>Chelsea are particularly well-versed in the art of selling players and engineering the majority of those deals to benefit them eventually.<\/p>\n