Not every great signing hits the ground running.
Andy Robertson arrived at Liverpool from Hull City and spent the first few months of the 2017-18 season sitting on the bench while Alberto Moreno ran up and down the left flank. A year later, midfielder Fabinho was signed early in the summer but didn’t play a single minute in the Premier League until Oct. 20. Come May 2019, they were both starting in Liverpool’s Champions League final win over Tottenham. And, the following season, both were stalwarts for the eventual Premier League champions.
As Liverpool won that league title, Manchester City struggled to find a replacement for their do-everything defensive midfielder, Fernandinho. They had signed Rodri from Atlético Madrid, but he didn’t seem up to the task of both progressing the ball aggressively and chopping down every opposition counter attack. And who could blame him? Reactive Atlético and proactive City were at opposite points on the tactical spectrum. Four years later, Rodri has won the Ballon d’Or, the Champions League, and four Premier League titles.
If you’d judged any of these transfers based on their first six matches, you would’ve missed out on arguably the best left back in Premier League history, a stalwart holding midfielder for one of the best teams the league has ever seen, and a guy who was literally voted as the best player on the planet last year.
So, should we just ignore everything we’ve seen so far this season, then? Not quite! But we should at least know how to weigh it: not too harshly.
So, let’s assess all of this past summer’s transfers with that in mind. No one is a bust. No one is a success. But if you had to make minor adjustments to expectations using the added evidence of the first month-plus to the season, how would you do it?
For this exercise, we went through all of the players who (A) permanently changed teams this summer, and (B) have estimated market values on Transfermarkt of €40 million or more, then determined whether the expectations for that player’s future success with his new team should be upgraded, downgraded, or maintained.
– Why Amorim is out of excuses at Man United
– First-month grades for all 20 Premier League teams
– O’Hanlon: Making sense of Liverpool’s late wins
Noni Madueke: Chelsea to Arsenal, €56 million
• Market value: €40 million
• Position: Right winger
• Age: 23
I loved this move at the time. Arsenal were getting a pre-prime player at the premium position in the sport for significantly less than significantly worse players moved for this same summer. He’d also underperformed his expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) numbers last season, so there was a chance for both age-related and regression-related improvement.
At the same time, it was bizarre that Chelsea were letting him go, so maybe there was something wrong we couldn’t see from the outside.
Although he’s now injured, he’d been fantastic to start the season and gave Arsenal the cover for Bukayo Saka they so badly needed last season.
Expectation adjustment: Upgrade
Liam Delap: Ipswich to Chelsea, €35.5m
• Market value: €40m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 22
He’s only played 93 minutes and is now out injured for a couple of months.
Expectation adjustment: None
• Market value: €40m
• Position: Goalkeeper
• Age: 26
There are no questions about his shot-stopping and lots of questions about his ability with the ball at his feet. Two games isn’t enough to tell us anything yet.
Expectation adjustment: None
Mohammed Kudus: West Ham to Tottenham, €63.8m
• Market value: €45m
• Position: Right winger
• Age: 24
Through six games, Kudus has generated more than half of the expected goals assisted (1.8) than he did in all of last season with West Ham (3.1). He looked like a classic great dribbler who didn’t actually help create chances, but he’s right around 0.5 goals+assists per 90 minutes so far this season. If he can keep that up, then this is a much better signing that it initially seemed.
Expectation adjustment: Upgrade
Milos Kerkez: Bournemouth to Liverpool, €46.9m
• Market value: €45m
• Position: Left back
• Age: 21
He has struggled to start the season, but it’s unclear how much of that should be put on him. He’s touching the ball more than he did at Bournemouth, but he’s actually getting on the ball less often in the opposition penalty area and in the attacking third with Liverpool.
Kerkez flourished as an all-action up-and-down full back last season — but this season he’s being asked to help progress the ball from deep, and it hasn’t clicked.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
Alejandro Garnacho: Manchester United to Chelsea, €46.2m
• Market value: €45m
• Position: Left winger
• Age: 21
He’s only played 11 Premier League minutes, and a lot of that is due to his last-minute transfer and early Chelsea red cards in each of the past two games.
Expectation adjustment: None
Rayan Cherki: Lyon to Manchester City, €36.5m
• Market value: €45m
• Position: Right winger
• Age: 21
The concern with this transfer wasn’t: Will Rayan Cherki be a great attacking player? He was expected to be — he was in France, for multiple years, and Ligue 1 usually translates quite well to the Premier League.
Rather, the bigger question was: Will Rayan Cherki’s defensive shortcomings outweigh his attacking contributions? He is currently injured, so we must wait to make any adjustments.
Expectation adjustment: None
• Market value: €45m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 25
After a lights-out opening match against Parma, he has slowly declined in effectiveness, fell out of the starting XI, and then didn’t even make it off the bench in this past weekend’s 1-1 draw with Atalanta.
The player hierarchy at Juventus seems to change every game, though, so this feels more like a wait-and-see situation.
Expectation adjustment: None
Jeremie Frimpong: Leverkusen to Liverpool, €40m
• Market value: €50m
• Position: right back
• Age: 24
While Kerkez has been forced into a role on the left that he’s not yet suited for, the plan for Frimpong on the other side also isn’t quite clear.
He’s lost out on starts to both Conor Bradley and Dominik Szoboszlai, and the former wing back has looked uncomfortable in possession whenever he’s been in traditional right back positions. Frimpong’s future role at Liverpool is slightly murkier than it was a couple months ago.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
João Pedro: Brighton to Chelsea, €63.7m
• Market value: €50m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 23
Could he generate enough around the goal to be the starting center forward for a team with dreams of making a Champions League run and challenging near the top of the Premier League?
He’s scored twice and assisted three more, but his expected goals, expected assists, and expected-possession-value-added numbers are all down from last season. Still, about 1.5 of Chelsea’s six games have been with a man down, and there have been some moments where you understand how this all might work.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
Tijjani Reijnders: AC Milan to Manchester City, €55m
• Market value: €50m
• Position: central midfield
• Age: 26
He’s had some really nice moments where you start to get it. He went lights-out against Wolves for five minutes and briefly looked like the best player in the world as he effortlessly ripped their backline apart. And his burst from midfield and skill on the ball — combined with Erling Haaland breaking the speed of sound — created the goal against Arsenal last weekend.
But the worry with Reijnders is that he’s just that: a moments player, and not a midfielder who is able to affect the game for the full 90 minutes.
Expectation adjustment: None
Jamie Gittens: Dortmund to Chelsea, €56m
• Market value: €50m
• Position: Left winger
• Age: 20
While he looked like a long-term-project signing, there was at least a small chance that Gittens came in and immediately took it to Premier League defenses. Instead, he’s taken four total shots and created three total chances with 0.11 xG and 0.11 expected assists.
Expectation adjustment: None
Bryan Mbeumo: Brentford to Manchester United, €75m
• Market value: €55m
• Position: Right winger
• Age: 25
A reasonable expectation for Mbeumo was that he would be a pretty good attacker who would make a bad attacking team better at attacking, but that he also wouldn’t maintain his unsustainable finishing performance from last season.
Man United are now leading the league with 12.2 expected goals created through six games, and they’ve turned that into seven actual goals.
Expectation adjustment: None
1:27
Nicol: The Man United team is just not good enough
Steve Nicol questions the level of Manchester United’s players as he believes the squad needs an ‘overhaul’.
Eberechi Eze: Crystal Palace to Arsenal, €69.3m
• Market value: €55m
• Position: Attacking midfield
• Age: 27
He’s only started two games so far, so we’ll push this one off for now — but Crystal Palace do seem a little bit better without him. Well, at least, they’re not any worse.
Meanwhile, Arsenal are still scoring pretty much all of their goals from set plays, so it’s not evident how much he’s helped improve them so far. At the same time, his ball over the top for Gabriel Martinelli‘s equalizer against Manchester City was the exact kind of situation the Gunners have struggled to create over the past couple seasons.
Expectation adjustment: None
Álex Baena: Villarreal to Atlético, €42m
• Market value: €55m
• Position: Left winger
• Age: 23
This summer, Baena was the young, undervalued guy with amazing underlying stats that people like me love — the potential superstar hiding in plain sight. But he’s only played 68 total LaLiga minutes so far this season.
Plenty of other young, creative types have seen their careers stall under Atlético manager Diego Simeone, and that outcome is slightly more likely than it was a few months ago.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
Matheus Cunha: Wolves to Manchester United, €74.2m
• Market value: €60m
• Position: Second striker
• Age: 26
See: Mbeumo, Bryan.
Expectation adjustment: None
• Market value: €60m
• Position: Defensive midfield
• Age: 26
If we account for schedule difficulty, Arsenal have been the best team in the Premier League so far this season. And, well, Zubimendi has played every minute of every game for that same team.
There was no guarantee he’d be good enough to be a never-leave-the-field contributor for Arsenal right from the start. It already seems pretty clear that he is.
Expectation adjustment: Upgrade
Dean Huijsen: Bournemouth to Real Madrid, €62.5m
• Market value: €60m
• Position: Center back
• Age: 20
While Huijsen was really good as a teenager for Bournemouth last season, was he “immediately start for Real Madrid” good? Turns out that Xabi Alonso thinks so, and Huijsen is second among all Madrid players in progressive passes per 90 minutes.
At the same time, he’s already been red-carded once, Madrid just got annihilated by a scuffling Atlético team, and they’re in the bottom half of LaLiga for expected goals conceded.
Sounds about right for a 20-year-old who’s making the leap from the ninth-best team in the Premier League to a team that expects to win every major trophy, every season.
Expectation adjustment: None
Estêvão: Palmeiras to Chelsea, €45m
• Market value: €60m
• Position: Right winger
• Age: 18
Through six games, an 18-year-old Brazilian kid is leading Chelsea in expected goals-plus-assists per 90 minutes and he made our list of the 13 players most likely to win the Ballon d’Or in 2035.
Expectation adjustment: Upgrade
Luis Díaz: Liverpool to Bayern Munich, €70m
• Market value: €70m
• Position: Left winger
• Age: 28
There was a small chance that Diaz just didn’t fit at Bayern, but the larger issue with this deal is that it was a lot of money for a player already at the end of his peak years. That problem remains, even though Diaz has been world class in his first month-plus in Germany.
Expectation adjustment: None
Xavi Simons: Leipzig to Tottenham, €65m
• Market value: €70m
• Position: Attacking midfield
• Age: 22
He has started only two matches, neither of which was particularly notable in a positive or negative way.
Expectation adjustment: None
Benjamin Sesko: Leipzig to Manchester United, €76.5m
• Market value: €70m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 22
The Brentford game summed up the Sesko situation as it stands: He took two shots from outside the box, another shot from no angle off a set piece, and then three shots in a five-second span that eventually led to a goal. He then didn’t take another shot after the 32nd minute.
So, it’s long stretches of inefficiency and ineffectiveness, punctuated by a moment or two every match of “oh-my-god-did-he-really-do-that.” This was what I expected, but I thought there was at least a small chance that his athleticism might overwhelm the Premier League right away.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
Hugo Ekitike: Frankfurt to Liverpool, €95m
• Market value: €75m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 23
Just another lesson in why we should pay little attention to finishing performance in any given individual season: Ekitike scored 14 non-penalty goals last season in the Bundesliga from 19.38 xG. This season for Liverpool, he’s scored three goals from 1.8 xG.
Back when news of his move to Liverpool first emerged, it seemed Ekitike had all the makings of both a complete bust and a future superstar.
Since then, he’s been frustrating in possession at times — holding the ball for too long, turning it over right as multiple teammates make runs beyond him — and his red card against Southampton in the third round of the Carabao Cup was one of the funniest things you’ll ever see happen on the field. (He got sent off for picking up a second yellow card after holding his jersey up to the crowd like he was Lionel Messi at the Santiago Bernabeu, having scored a tap-in against the 19th-place team in the Championship.)
But he’s already been a plus-contributor to Liverpool — it’s unlikely that he’ll be a bust.
Expectation adjustment: Upgrade
1:17
Burley slams Ekitike for missing Liverpool’s first defeat
Craig Burley blasts Hugo Ekitike for being suspended for Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace after receiving a red card vs. Southampton in the Carabao Cup.
• Market value: €75m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 27
He’s worked really hard, and the numbers show it. Per Gradient, he’s leading all Premier League players in sprints (defined as runs where a player reached 25 kilometers per hour or greater).
But he just still hasn’t produced around the goal. He attempted zero shots in the three games against the two Manchester clubs and Liverpool, and despite starting all six games for the Gunners and not contributing much at all in build-up play, he ranks just 16th among all Premier League players for non-penalty expected goals.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
• Market value: €75m
• Position: Right back
• Age: 26
On the one hand, he’s barely done anything for Madrid. It even seemed like he was on the wrong side of a platoon with Dani Carvajal — and then injured his hamstring. The downside of Alexander-Arnold moving anywhere from Liverpool was his new manager not being willing to cover up for his deficiencies, or not being willing to exploit his otherworldly passing skills. And we at least did see some of that over the first couple weeks of the season in Spain.
At the same time, Liverpool look so different, and so frequently out of sorts, without him in the team. There have been so many moments where the ball goes out to the right side — some 30 or 40 yards from goal — and then … nothing happens. Play just gets recycled or someone runs down the line and tries to play a cross that gets blocked. In the past, those possessions would be immediately turned into dangerous crosses or through balls to onrushing midfielders or strikers.
The first month in Madrid was a reminder of just how unconventional of a player Alexander-Arnold is, and the first month in Liverpool was a reminder of just how freaking good he is.
Expectation adjustment: None
Alexander Isak: Newcastle to Liverpool, €145m
• Market value: €120m
• Position: Center forward
• Age: 25
He has started one Premier League match so far, and he has only played in two. Check back with me in a month.
Expectation adjustment: None
Florian Wirtz: Leverkusen to Liverpool, €125m
• Market value: €140m
• Position: Attacking midfield
• Age: 22
He has … zero goals and zero assists through six matches. Not ideal! Of course, the quality of his shots and passes suggest he should have about one of each so far, but you shouldn’t be happy with that from your then-club-record signing at attacking midfield.
The best-case scenario for this transfer was that you got a player who would immediately play at a world-class level — and then continue to do so (and maybe get even better) once Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk aged out of the starting XI. The latter is very much still in play, while the former is, too — we just haven’t seen it yet.
Expectation adjustment: Downgrade
