Cole Palmer and £103m Man Utd target among top 10 market value increases this season

There are three Premier League stars and two Englishmen in this list of the top 10 players with the greatest increase in their market values this season from Europe’s top five leagues. 

We’ve differentiated players with the same increase in market value by the percentage increase, with all data courtesy of Transfermarkt.

Here are the market value decreases if you’re a Negative Nancy.

10) Cole Palmer: €15m to €45m (+€30m)

He’s very nearly reached the value of his actual transfer fee (€47m) during six months in which he’s flown in the face of his teammates’ mediocrity. While almost all of them have at best stagnated and at worst crumbled under the pressure of playing for Chelsea, Palmer has borne the entire creative load of a £1bn squad with the confidence of a man who’s thrown ten successive apple cores into the living room bin.

According to Opta he ranks second behind Jeremy Doku in the Premier League for open-play expected assists with 0.31 per 90 minutes, and his average of 1.09 through-balls per 90 is only bettered by Lucas Paqueta. Of players under the age of 21 in Europe’s top five leagues, only Jude Bellingham (15) has more than his 13 goal contributions.

Credit where it’s due, though Chelsea have got an awful lot wrong in the transfer market, they appear to have absolutely nailed this one.

9) Ousmane Diomande: €10m to €40m (+€30m)

Arsenal and Newcastle have been linked with the 20-year-old, who’s been pulling up trees at Sporting Lisbon since his move from FC Midtjylland last January. But as night follows day, Chelsea are now in the mix having spent £200m on mediocre centre-backs in the last two years.

8) Viktor Gyokeres: €13m to €45m (+€32m)

It pays to be young in terms of the market value increase real quiz, but as Gyokeres proves, it also pays to be plucked from relative obscurity. Few fans outside England or Sweden would even have heard of the 25-year-old before the summer, when Sporting Lisbon paid Coventry City €20m for his services. And even then, most radars won’t have started pinging until December, when the striker needs of Arsenal and Chelsea led transfer gossipmongers to tip them with a move for the in-form marksman.

20 goals and ten assists in 24 games is a more than handy return and made reports of a £73m bid from Chelsea plausible – despite the face-value ridiculousness of a 265% mark-up in six months – though it’s since been revealed that the Blues made no such offer, and have no intention of edging towards his £86m release clause.

7) Evan Ferguson: €30m to €65m (+€35m)

It’s an extraordinary market value for a striker with 16 goals in 53 senior appearances, and yet most would consider the €65m signing of Ferguson to be quite the bargain.

Brighton are well aware of the talent of the Premier League’s seventh-best finisher, and interest from the big boys has led to them slapping a £100m asking price on his head, which presumably Chelsea will pay at some stage over the next year or so. We have strongly advised him against that particular move, but a transfer of some sort feels frustratingly inevitable as it does for all the top young talent either coming through the Seagulls academy or emerging from it having been plucked from obscurity elsewhere.

6) Takefusa Kubo: €25m to €60m (+€35m)

Always good to see a European giant drop a clanger in the transfer market, but while it may seem as though Real Madrid did just that by letting Kubo leave for just €6.5m in the summer of 2022, they will also reportedly earn 50% of any future sale from Real Sociedad above €4m, and will either earn a significant fee should he move elsewhere, or be able to buy him back for a modest sum, as rumours suggest they may do.

With nine goals and seven assists in La Liga last term and a further nine goal contributions this season, Kubo is arguably the standout forward beyond the usual suspects of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. Reports earlier this month suggested Manchester United were looking to offer Antony in exchange for the Japan international, as we offered a half-eaten sandwich we found on the street to a guy munching his way through a gourmet roast dinner.

5) Joao Neves: €10m to €45m (+€35m)

A report this week claimed Manchester United are very keen on Neves as, let’s face it, news outlets guess the transfer targets of the Manchester United knights Jim Ratcliffe and Dave Brailsford.

They’re barely a week into the audit and yet they apparently view a 19-year-old central midfielder from Benfica who’s made 49 senior appearances as a ‘priority investment’ after a ‘challenging season’. Who are they, Chelsea?

He’s got a £103m release clause so they will have to be very like Chelsea if they want to land him, but the Portuguese side currently have no interest in losing their new Enzo Fernandez. ‘Under no circumstances did Sport Lisboa e Benfica enter into talks with Manchester United,’ their statement read on Tuesday.

4) Jeremy Doku: €28m to €65m (+€37m)

No player in Europe’s top five leagues has more successful take-ons per 90 minutes than Doku, who tears past those suspecting but helpless right-backs 5.23 times on average. He also has more shot-creating actions per 90 minutes (5.57) than any Manchester City player other than Kevin De Bruyne, who has managed four in 44 minutes of action and shouldn’t be compared to anyone as he’s a freak of football.

Jeremy Doku joined Manchester City from Rennes in the summer.

3) Warren Zaire-Emery: €20m to €60m (+€40m)

He became France’s youngest post-war player and Les Blues youngest scorer in a century after Didier Deschamps handed the 17-year-old a start against Gibraltar in November, and Thierry Henry – who coached him at U21 level – believes there is “no limit” to what the midfielder can achieve.

After mainly substitute appearances for PSG having broken into the first team last term, Zaire-Emery is now a stalwart under Luis Enrique.

2) Jude Bellingham: €120m to €180m (+€60m)

Quite the lean spell for La Liga’s top scorer, who hasn’t managed to find the net in his last four in all competitions, but did provide a delightful assist for Vinicius Junior to set Real Madrid on their way to beat Barcelona and win their first trophy of the season, so all is not lost.

We would venture to guess that won’t be Bellingham’s last trophy for the La Liga giants, who our top soothsayers predict will shortly be adding some firepower up top to lessen a goalscoring burden that the England international’s taken on his shoulders as though it’s a scarf made of butterfly wings and meringue.

But none of his feats thus far or in the future will surpass his decision to disregard Sir Alex Ferguson’s sweet nothings on his tour of the run-down Manchester United training complex in March 2020. Good call, Jude. Good call.

READ: Who will win the 2024 Ballon d’Or? Bellingham the early favourite but Mbappe, Haaland are lurking

1) Lamine Yamal: €0m to €60m (+€60m)

Umbrella by Rihanna Ft. Jay Z was No.1 when Yamal was born in the summer of 2007. Thierry Henry was moving to Barcelona and Fernando Torres to Liverpool. It happened recently is what we’re saying.

“Let’s see what the future holds without comparing him with Messi,” Xavi said when the 16-year-old recently signed a new contract until 2026 with a £1bn release clause, before mentioning Messi’s name a further four times in his press conference.

He became La Liga’s youngest ever goalscorer after a strike against Granada in October and is also the youngest to record a goal for Spain after scoring on debut against Georgia a month earlier. It’s hard not to get carried away, and while he won’t be Messi, Barcelona can surely be reasonably confident he’ll be more Messi than Giovani Dos Santos or Gerard Deulofeu.