Ranking Premier League clubs by value added or lost on transfers
This feels like a pretty good metric for assessing how well Premier League clubs are being run, with value added calculated by subtracting how much money was spent on the squad from the current market value.
Transfer market acumen is obviously key, as is the ability of the manager to develop players, and the quality of the academy. That’s three swings and misses for Manchester United then, who are one of two clubs with what we guess is technically a ‘value subtracted’ score (no prizes for guessing the other).
We’ve ranked the clubs by percentage value added/lost to account for the vast differences in budget. All numbers are taken from transfermarkt.
1) Luton
Purchase value: €20.9m
Market value: €101.6m
Difference: €80.7m
Value added: 79.4%
Seven of their top ten record arrivals joined this season to blow their Carlton Morris record out of the water. Morris, Ross Barkley, Elijah Adebayo, Teden Mengi and Alfie Doughty are now among many worth far, far more than the Hatters paid. As it stands they might just succumb to relegation but heads will be held high whatever the outcome.
2) Brighton
Purchase value: €201.62m
Market value: €487.10m
Difference: €222.48m
Value added: 58.6%
An extraordinary difference even before you remember they’ve made €333.8m in player sales in the last two seasons. Evan Ferguson and Kauro Mitoma are the big market value increases as things stand, but Simon Adingra, Julio Enciso and Jack Hinshelwood will presumably all be linked with Chelsea or Manchester United soon.
3) Brentford
Purchase value: €184.70m
Market value: €407.18m
Difference: €222.48m
Value added: 54.6%
It’s no great surprise to see the data junkies near the top of this list, with Bryan Mbeumo, Mathias Jensen and Vitaly Janelt among the computer nerds’ biggest wins. Ivan Toney, signed for €5.6m in 2020, will be their record departure when he eventually leaves.
4) Fulham
Purchase value: €180.42m
Market value: €335.00m
Difference: €154.58m
Value added: 46.1%
Joao Palhinha is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that difference, remarkably trebling his market value at the age of 28 from €20m to €60m, but there are lots of not-insignificant wins in the current squad, including Antonee Robinson Harrison Reed and Andreas Pereira. Marco Silva undoubtedly deserves more credit for being a coach who actually coaches.
5) Arsenal
Purchase value: €679.64m
Market value: €1.11bn
Difference: €429.86m
Value added:Â 38.7%
Thomas Partey and Kai Havertz are the only market value decreases of any significance, with near enough every other member of the squad increasing in value during their time playing under Mikel Arteta, who is obviously benefitting from having a savvy transfer team working above him, but is also an undeniably brilliant coach. Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard provide clear evidence of that. To be the second most valuable football team in world football and have that much value added is truly extraordinary. Bravo.
But they only got here with some tough decisions.
6) Aston Villa
Purchase value: €394.99m
Market value: €623.05m
Difference: €228.06m
Value added: 36.6%
Aston Villa’s market value as a whole has increased by over €170m since June 2023, thanks in part due to some excellent work in the summer window, during which they signed Moussa Diaby, Pau Torres and Youri Tielemans for – in total – €45m less than their market values, but mainly because Unai Emery is a managerial genius, improving pretty much every player he’s worked with at Villa Park.
7) Crystal Palace
Purchase value: €259.27m
Market value: €385.90m
Difference: €126.64m
Value added: 32.8%
Oliver Glasner inherits a pretty healthy squad on paper but faces a summer when Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, Joachim Andersen and Marc Guehi might cash for the coffers rather than remaining as their value-added kings.
8) Nottingham Forest
Purchase value: €248.35m
Market value: €385.90m
Difference: €111.30m
Value added: 30.9%
Spent €317m on players since their promotion and made €19m in the period that mattered to the PSR points dockers, who presumably didn’t require a calculator, let alone an accountancy degree to come to the conclusion that Forest had been breaking the rules. ‘But, but, but we wanted the best price for Brennan Johnson’ is a terrible excuse that surely won’t fly.
9) Wolves
Purchase value: €221.00m
Market value: €302.70m
Difference: €81.70m
Value added: 27%
Max Kilman – plucked from Maidenhead for nothing in 2018 – makes up almost half the difference for Wolves, with Rayan Ait-Nouri and Pedro Neto also doing some sterling work. Gary O’Neil’s coaching of this Wolves side deserves a barrel-load of credit.
10) Burnley
Purchase value: €186.95m
Market value: €253.10m
Difference: €66.15m
Value added: 26.1%
Not a brilliant score, and that’s largely because Burnley did a Chelsea on a much more humble scale, overpaying for players with potential who could come good but are currently valued below what was spent on them. Zeki Amdouni and James Trafford are perhaps the best examples.
11) Manchester City
Purchase value: €936.20m
Market value: €1.26bn
Difference: €327.00m
Value added: 25.9%
The most valuable club in world football, where already brilliant players go to get better thanks to a genius coach, but it all means nothing because they’re a(n alleged) bunch of cheating scallywags and will be denounced as such circa 2028 with a further dozen hollow major trophies in the cabinet.
Pep Guardiola celebrates winning the Premier League title.
12)Â Liverpool
Purchase value: €668.75m
Market value: €868.75m
Difference: €200m
Value added: 23.0%
Alisson and Virgil van Dijk are doing Liverpool no favours in the value-added stakes, as they’re obviously both now terrible; also possibly because they’re the wrong side of 30. They’re also taking a bit of a hit on Darwin Nunez despite his market value increasing from €55m to €65m in his time at Anfield, thanks to his total €85m transfer fee. But Trent Alexander-Arnold (+€70m) is a big winner and Mohamed Salah is still a €23m positive despite being 31 years old.
13) Bournemouth
Purchase value: €284.62m
Market value: €341.80m
Difference: €57.18m
Value added: 16.7%
Six of their top ten record arrivals joined the club in the last two seasons, and only two of those players – Ilya Zabarnyi and Milos Kerkez – are worth more now than what they paid for them. Tyler Adams, their second most expensive signing ever, has played 20 minutes of football this season; Hamed Traore, their third most expensive signing ever, has featured for 181 minutes of football and has now gone on loan to Napoli.
14) Everton
Purchase value: €281.12m
Market value: €336.90m
Difference: €55.78m
Value added: 16.6%
Without Jarrad Branthwaite and Amadou Onana they would very quickly be in the red given the steady decline of the majority of the squad, and that may soon be their reality given significant transfer interest in the pair.
READ MORE: Chelsea hijack Onana, Arsenal score left-back as Everton, Forest players cherry-picked after FFP breach
15) Tottenham
Purchase value: €645.15m
Market value: €761.30m
Difference: €116.15m
Value added: 15.3%
Buying James Maddison for €46m is cheating, quite frankly, and it feels as though the only way is up for Destiny Udogie, Pape Matar Sarr, Guglielmo Vicario and Micky van de Ven under Ange Postecoglou.
16) Newcastle
Purchase value: €561.25m
Market value: €638.70m
Difference: €77.45m
Value added: 12.1%
Of the top nine most valuable players in the Newcastle squad only Joelinton (€42m) and Joe Willock (€35m) were bought before the arrival of their Saudi benefactors in October 2021. Bruno Guimaraes represents their biggest transfer market win by far, given he’s more than doubled his value to €85m in his two years at the club. There have otherwise only been small increases in value, with the vast majority either retaining or dropping.
17) Sheffield United
Purchase value: €131.29m
Market value: €146.75m
Difference: €15.46m
Value added: 10.5%
Anel Ahmedhodzic is a big positive in an otherwise bleak picture for the Blades, who have just George Baldock as the only other market value increase in their squad besides academy graduates, who don’t even account for €10m between them.
18) West Ham
Purchase value: €396.40m
Market value: €440.60m
Difference: €44.2m
Value added: 10%
Something of a surprise perhaps to see them so low given Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paqueta and other quality young-ish players, whose market values will outstrip their transfer fees in time. But they have the second oldest squad in the Premier League with an average age of 28, and values generally only go in one direction past that point.
19) Chelsea
Purchase value: €1.02bn
Market value: €948.10m
Difference: -€68.80m
Value added: -7.3%
Truly incredible to have a value subtracted score when you’ve got three academy graduates in the squad – Reece James, Conor Gallagher and Levi Colwill – with a total value (otherwise known as pure profit by the Chelsea directors) of €147m. Billion-pound bottle jobs, the lot of them.
20) Manchester United
Purchase value: €863.12m
Market value: €732.25m
Difference: -€127.87m
Value added: -17.4%
Very funny that Antony’s market value of €35m is actually the same as when they bought him. The problem of course being that they paid €60m more than that market value. And nearly as amusing that Raphael Varane was signed for €30m less than what he was worth – pats on the back all round for that, guys – but two-and-a-half years at Old Trafford now sees him valued at €15m less than they paid.
These numbers would be even worse if Jadon Sancho was not out of sight and out of mind at Borussia Dortmund.
READ: Manchester United should learn from Arsenal and Arteta if they really want Antony ‘value’
