Analysis of the Most Questionable Summer Signings: Which Were the Market’s “Flops”?
Each year, after the NFL draft, the debate centers on “steals” and “reaches.” “Steals” are the players that the football public considers were selected much later than their talent deserved. “Reaches” are those we believed were chosen much earlier than they should have been.
It turns out we’re only half right.
A 2021 study by Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus analyzed six years of draft data and identified players who were selected significantly higher or lower than public rankings indicated. What he found is that players considered “overdrafts” underperformed, on average, compared to other players selected at the same position in other years. But the players who were “steals”? They didn’t perform better than expected, according to their draft position.
The elegance of this study lies in the rationality of its explanation. For a player to be a true “overreach”, only one team has to make a mistake in the evaluation of the player. For a player to be a true “steal”, almost the entire NFL has to make a mistake in the evaluation of the player, and NFL teams have access to much more information than the general public.
I bring this up because I believe a similar heuristic could be applied to the football transfer market. It’s very easy for a club to look at a player and pay much more than any other club would consider. It’s much harder for all clubs with the required budget to undervalue the same talented player. That’s why there’s a common phrase among data-driven thinkers in the football world: “Hire me just so I can tell you ‘no’ a couple of times a year, and it will be worth it”.
So, with the transfer window closed in the major European leagues, what transfers seem like the biggest excesses? Who could have benefited from someone on staff saying “no”? Here are the 13 most questionable signings of this summer market.
13. Martín Zubimendi, defensive midfielder, Real Sociedad to Arsenal
Age: 26
Price: 70 million euros
Market value (according to Transfermarkt): 60 million euros
Projected negative differential between price and value in one year: 16.7%
Last summer, I wrote about a transfer projection system that NFL analyst Kevin Cole helped me create. We are using that same system to create these rankings. Here’s an excerpt:
To varying degrees, a lower age, a lower transfer fee, and a higher market value at the time of the transfer made it more likely that there would be an increase in value after a year. Then, we can take those factors and create a formula to predict an increase or decrease in value for any large transfer.
In other words: within a year, is it likely that a player’s market value will be higher or lower than their transfer fee, and to what extent?
This is a basic analysis, and does not take into account the additional costs of player salaries, which can vary significantly. In addition, we are using Transfermarkt’s estimated numbers to calculate market values and fees, which often contain add-ons.
However, studies have found that Transfermarkt values tend to be quite close to the true value of the player on average, and also allows us to harness the power of the wisdom of the crowds: the market values on the site are a pretty good representation of what the world thinks of a player. At least according to our analysis, when teams have paid significantly more than the Transfermarkt value for a player, those moves have tended not to work.
In line with what I said before: When I looked at the 30 most expensive transfers last summer, the system was much better at projecting failures than successes. Among the players who were expected to see a value increase of less than 1%, I would say that one of the 12 (Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest) was a real success. Three of the players, João Palhinha, João Félix and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, are already playing for new teams.
The Arsenal’s transfer approach this summer was apparently designed to get a bad grade in these projections: They want to win now and don’t seem to care much about how things might look in the future. The Gunners have signed three players aged 26 or older for 65 million euros or more.
12. Gerson, central midfielder, Flamengo to Zenit Saint Petersburg
Age: 28
Price: 25 million euros
Market value: 25 million euros
Projected negative spread: 17%
There are two Zenit players in Carlo Ancelotti’s most recent Brazil squad. And neither of them is named “Gerson”.11. Luis Díaz, winger, Liverpool to Bayern Munich
Age: 28
Price: 70 million euros
Market value: 70 million euros
Projected negative spread: 17%
Díaz was fantastic for Liverpool last season, but there are only three 28-year-old players who required a higher transfer fee than the one Bayern Munich paid to acquire him:
Eden Hazard: 120.8 million euros, Chelsea to Real Madrid
Antoine Griezmann: 120 million euros, Atlético de Madrid to Barcelona
Romelu Lukaku: 113 million euros, Inter Milan to Chelsea
Gonzalo Higuaín: 90 million euros, Napoli to Juventus
Hazard could be the worst transfer of all time, Lukaku lasted one season at Chelsea, and Griezmann and Higuaín spent two full years with Barcelona and Juventus, respectively, before moving elsewhere. All these players were held in similar, if not greater, esteem to Díaz at the time of their transfers. As good as Díaz has looked to start the season, history is not on Bayern’s side in this case.10. Kingsley Coman, winger, Bayern Munich to Al-Nassr
Age: 29
Price: 25 million euros
Market value: 30 million euros
Projected negative differential: 17.3%
The Saudi Pro League does not operate on the same economic terms as the rest of the football world. They are not restricted by Profit and Sustainability Rules, UEFA regulations, or even more universal concerns like “budgets”, “profits”, and “the value of money”. They also tend to pay such inflated salaries to players that looking only at transfer fees tells an even smaller part of the story than it usually does.
But just for fun, I wanted to see if any of the deals they’ve made this summer actually project well according to our simple model. And one of them actually does. While it seemed Enzo Millot was heading to Atletico Madrid, Al Ahli swooped in and snagged the 23-year-old attacking midfielder from Stuttgart for 30 million euros. Transfermarkt valued his market value at 35 million euros, and within a year that number is projected to be 17.5% higher than the fee Al Ahli paid. That would make Millot the 24th “best” transfer of the summer.
9. Matheus Cunha, attacking midfielder, Wolverhampton to Manchester United
Age: 26
Price: 74.2 million euros
Market value: 60 million euros
Projected negative differential: 21.02%
The “ESPN FC” team discusses their thoughts on Matheus Cunha joining Manchester United for £62.5 million.
We’ll delve deeper here when we get to another Manchester United signing on this list. Can you guess who?
8. Alexander Isak, forward, Newcastle to Liverpool
Age: 25
Price: 140 million euros
Market value: 120 million euros
Projected negative differential: 26%
This encapsulates very well the advantages and disadvantages of spending more money on a transfer fee than any club not owned by the nation of Qatar has ever spent.
It’s practically impossible for Isak to give Liverpool more than they’ve invested in acquiring him. If he wins the Ballon d’Or, then maybe you could say that. But basically, Isak has to be one of the top 10 or 15 players in the world, immediately and then for many more years after that, for this deal to “break even” in any kind of sense of value.
Unlike the other two big moves by the club for young players Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz, Isak is 25 years old, already in his prime. He turns 26 next month. That’s all.
Also, well, I’m not convinced Isak is at that absolute top-tier elite talent level. He’s never scored 20 non-penalty goals in a season. Hell, he’s only reached double digits three times. And he played less than two-thirds of the available Premier League minutes in his three years with Newcastle. The most likely outcome is that Isak ends up somewhere below “140 million euro player” when all is said and done.
But, barring injury, which is a concern, given Isak’s lack of skill, there’s probably also a fairly high floor here.
Sure, the model projects that the value of Isak, obtained by the crowd, will be 26% lower, for this time next year, than that 140 million euro fee that Liverpool paid. But even with that decrease, Liverpool would still have a starting striker valued at around 104 million euros.7. Bryan Mbeumo, winger, Brentford to Manchester United
Age: 25
Price: 75 million euros
Market value: 55 million euros
Projected negative differential: 21.6%
OK, now we can talk about Cunha and Mbeumo together. I’ve already written a lot about these moves and why I didn’t like them, and the first matches have already started to prove it.
The Manchester United paid a lot of money for two players who exceeded their expected goal numbers by massive amounts and by much more than they had ever done before. It was incredibly unlikely that both players, let alone one of them, would continue to convert their chances at such high rates. In the matches against Fulham and Arsenal, they combined for 12 shots worth 1.21 xG and zero goals:
Even without the goals, I think Mbeumo and Cunha have still improved Manchester United. They were quite competitive at home against Arsenal, and then played Fulham even away. But that’s the thing: These were two Premier League players already in their prime, competent and without any real chance of becoming stars. They were going to improve Manchester United in the short term because Manchester United finished last season in 15th place.
Now, they seem as good as Fulham. That would be a 12-point improvement over last season. And yet it would only put them in 11th place in the table.
6. Luis Suárez, forward, Almería to Sporting Lisbon
Age: 27
Price: 22.2 million euros
Market value: 8 million euros
Projected negative spread: 26.82%
I, uh, yes: This one beats me! Sporting replaced Viktor Gyokeres with the not-so-Luis Suárez, 27, with a five-year contract. The fee makes him the third most expensive player the club has acquired, after Manuel Ugarte and Gyokeres. Since both players eventually moved for large fees to bigger clubs, maybe I shouldn’t doubt them. But it sure seems like they think they can do the Gyokeres thing again.
They signed Gyokeres at 25, after he left Brighton and played well in the Championship. He dominated the Portuguese league and then moved to Arsenal this summer. With Suárez, they signed him at 27, after he scored 19 goals without penalties and added eight assists in Spain. But not in LaLiga, this was in the second division.
Before that, I had played four seasons in the first division mainly in Spain but with half a season in France, and I had scored 25 goals and added 10 assists, in total.5. Eberechi Eze, attacking midfielder, Crystal Palace to Arsenal
Age: 27
Price: 69.3 million euros
Market value: 55 million euros
Projected negative differential: 26.93%
On paper, this deal projects poorly, but I want to get away from age curves and algorithms for a second. I hope this move works. Eze grew up supporting Arsenal, played for them at the early youth levels, but was released when he was 13. He then bounced around the lower levels of England for a while, made his professional debut with Wycombe in League Two, spent a few years with Queens Park Rangers in the Championship, and finally signed with Palace in 2020.
Now, 14 years later, he’s back at the club that abandoned him, trying to help them win their first major title since he was 6 years old. He worked hard and finally got to where he always wanted to be. This video, I mean, come on:
As I mentioned before, Arsenal are trying to win now. Their net spend on transfer fees this summer is 285.5 million euros, far above any other club in the world. And they are directing most of their resources towards players who are already well in their prime, rather than what they had done in the past: targeting players who would spend all their best years at the club. That is a massive risk.
And I think that’s especially true with this deal. It makes Eze the third most expensive 27-year-old player in history: behind Luis Suárez (Liverpool to Barcelona) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter Milan to Barcelona) and ahead of Kaká (AC Milan to Real Madrid), Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City to Manchester City) and Ángel Di María (Manchester United to PSG).
The hit rate with those moves is mixed, and those players were all established superstars and title winners. We haven’t seen Eze play at that level yet.
However, there is still a possibility that everything will work.4. Mateo Retegui, forward, Atalanta to Al Qadsiah
Age: 26
Price: 68.25 million euros
Market value: 45 million euros
Projected negative spread: 30.98%
Before last season, his first with Atalanta, Retegui had never scored more than 13 non-penalty goals in a season, in any professional league, in any country, and had never generated more than two assists. This was a goal-scoring forward who didn’t really score many goals.
However, put him in Gianpiero Gasperini’s system for a season, and you get 21 non-penalty goals and eight assists. He joined from Genoa for 20.9 million euros. A year later, he leaves for more than triple that fee.
A quick heads-up to the rest of the world: the fee paid for Retegui is the second largest that Atalanta has received. Just behind him: Teen Koopmeiners, who had three goals and three assists for Juventus last season. And just ahead of him: Rasmus Højlund, who is already on his way to Manchester United.
3. Yoane Wissa, forward, Brentford to Newcastle
Age: 28
Price: 57.7 million euros
Market value: 32 million euros
Projected negative spread: 45.27%
Don Hutchison analyzes Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa’s lack of professionalism for refusing to play and train for their respective clubs when trying to change clubs.
This seems like a good example of why (A) you shouldn’t let your best player leave on the last day of the window, and (B) you shouldn’t pay for past performance.
The whole Isak saga ultimately seemed rather pointless. If Newcastle had made the move two months ago, then they would have had… [calculates]… two months to figure out the best way to replace him.
Of course, they tried to find their replacements at the beginning of this summer, and they kept failing. But I’m not sure how you can look at this move, and then one at the top (bottom?) of this list and not see a team that suddenly realizes that the season has already started, the Champions League is coming, and they might not have anyone to play as a forward.
Wissa has been one of the most underrated players in the Premier League for the last two seasons, but last season he reached a new level: 0.71 non-penalty goals + assists per 90 minutes, after averaging just over 0.5 in the previous three seasons. If Wissa were 23 or 24 years old, you could quite well argue that “he made the leap”, that this was his new expected level of play. But Wissa turns 29 this week.
The most likely explanation is that he simply had the best season of his life, and it probably won’t happen again.2. Son Heung-Min, winger, Tottenham to LAFC
Age: 33
Price: 22 million euros
Market value: 20 million euros
Projected negative differential: 48.2%
This is the highest transfer fee ever paid by an MLS club, and it’s the third-highest fee ever paid by any club for a player aged 33 or older. Only Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer to Juventus from Real Madrid for 117 million euros and Robert Lewandowski’s transfer to Barcelona from Bayern Munich for 45 million euros cost more. Both players scored a lot of goals for their new clubs, and I suspect Son will do the same, in a much less competitive environment.
The move makes sense for LAFC, an MLS club, a league that tends to sign players before retirement.
However, for almost any other team in the world, it wouldn’t make any sense.
1. Nick Woltemade, forward, Stuttgart to Newcastle
Age: 23
Price: 85 million euros
Market value: 30 million euros
Projected negative differential: 48.5%
Let’s say there was a really tall striker with excellent feet for a player of his size. In his first professional season, he was on loan in the third division in Germany, and he was… okay. As a 20-year-old, he played just over 2,000 minutes and scored nine non-penalty goals. A 19-year-old scored the same number of goals in the same league. Another 20-year-old scored three more.
The following season, this tall forward played about 1,200 minutes in the Bundesliga. Given that he was making a two-level jump, he did what one would expect: two goals in 12 starts. Then, in his third year as a full-time professional, it finally seemed that he had begun to develop. He started half of his team’s matches and scored 10 goals without penalties.
This is also the player in whom Newcastle United has decided to invest more than half of Alexander Isak’s money.
There’s no more to the story: those were Woltemade’s last three seasons. In his 29 Bundesliga starts, he has scored 12 goals. He has never played more than 1,700 minutes in a first division season. And at 23, his peak years aren’t even that far off.
Could Woltemade become a star striker who lives up to the club’s record fee? Of course, but that’s also the best-case scenario. Given his incredibly limited track record, Woltemade could be out of the Premier League in a year or two.
