Which transfer fees have shocked you the most?

[sun_tzu]

Shearer to Newcastle for 15m

Not so much the fee more Newcastle paying a world record fee at the time

With hindsight that seems even stranger looking back at it

 

[Hal9000]

Was actually shocked we did'nt get more money off Madrid for Ronaldo.

 

[buckooo1978]

Andy Carroll for me is hands down the most ridiculous transfer fee I can think of....

Bebe is our standout ridiculous transfer fee for me considering his lack of experience

John Obi Mikel was a nice bit of business for us - 10 million for nothing - thank you Chelsea

 

[Sunny Jim]

Carroll for £35million, still sounds like a wind up. Retrospectively Torres for £50million too.

Both Toress and Carroll's fees were shocking. Berbatov's is up there too.

 

[Dan]

Ruud Gullit to A.C. Milan for £6M back in 1987.

 

[Stookie]

Signing Andy Cole, 7M i think it was, but it was the fact that it just happened! none of this pissing about that there is today.

 

[Solskjaer20]

Darren Bent to Villa for £24mil was shocking

 

[rcoobc]

Anzhi for Messi, £205millon

 

[Buchan]

Darren Bent to Villa for £24mil was shocking

He kept them up with his goals in the second half of that season. I think maintaining their Premier League status was worth far more to Villa than £24 million, and Lerner said so, too.

 

[Varun]

Carroll and Bebe spring to mind immediately. Absolutely ridiculous deals those.

 

[Solskjaer20]

He kept them up with his goals in the second half of that season. I think maintaining their Premier League status was worth far more to Villa than £24 million, and Lerner said so, too.

Fair enough, but still shocked me at the time

 

[Varun]

Ashley Young's £18m move.

It initially seemed a relatively high fee, but when you couple it in with it being the last year of his deal, I wonder what you lot were thinking.

Carlo Cudicini to Chelsea for £260k was a great, underrated deal at the time.

Cesc Fabregas for £150k remains the greatest deal of all time.

Agree about Young. Never understood why we paid 18mil for him in the last year of his contract.

The fabregas transfer shouldnt even qualify for this thread. You stole a player due to the contract situation in Spain at the time. Poaching young players and paying the minimum compensation(which is a lod of bollocks) doesnt really make it the greatest deal of all time.

 

[Buchan]

Fair enough, but still shocked me at the time

No doubt, man. I was shocked, too. It was the first transfer that opened my eyes to the worth of a Premier League status is to clubs. Many would have balked at the £24 million price tag, but Lerner admitted it paled in comparison to what they would have lost if they were relegated that season, which looked likely for a while until Bent's goals propelled them up the table.

The money in the game is absolutely obscene nowadays. It's no wonder clubs have £1,000 season tickets and £60 tickets for League Cup games when you think about it.

 

[Vato]

Recently? Villa to Atletico for 5 million, that'll probably be the best bargain any club has done this window.

Thiago is up there aswell, sorry caftards.

Torres, Carrol and Ibrahimovic were brutal.

If we pay more than 80m for Bale it will be up there aswell.

 

[TheReligion]

Agree about Young. Never understood why we paid 18mil for him in the last year of his contract.

The fabregas transfer shouldnt even qualify for this thread. You stole a player due to the contract situation in Spain at the time. Poaching young players and paying the minimum compensation(which is a lod of bollocks) doesnt really make it the greatest deal of all time.

We didn't pay 18m. Agree we paid too much however the downing, henderson and carroll transfers were far worse.

 

[Revan]

We didn't pay 18m. Agree we paid too much however the downing, henderson and carroll transfers were far worse.

We paid 17m and I think that Henderson to Liverpool in the end will be a better transfer than Young to us.

 

[Varun]

We didn't pay 18m. Agree we paid too much however the downing, henderson and carroll transfers were far worse.

The Carroll transfer just takes the biscuit. That deal and the bebe one are in a league of their own. Forgot the downing transfer, that was a shit one too. Henderson was a bad one but not as bad as young and downing's imo. He was pretty highly rated among the young English CMs at the time and he's young too, should turn out decently for Pool.

 

[TheReligion]

We paid 17m and I think that Henderson to Liverpool in the end will be a better transfer than Young to us.

That's by the by. He was massively over priced. Liverpool paid heavily over the odds under Dalglish.

 

[Revan]

The Carroll transfer just takes the biscuit. That deal and the bebe one are in a league of their own. Forgot the downing transfer, that was a shit one too. Henderson was a bad one but not as bad as young and downing's imo. He was pretty highly rated among the young English CMs at the time and he's young too, should turn out decently for Pool.

Has anyone mentioned Mendieta yet? That transfer actually makes Carroll transfer looks sensible. 48m EUR and was a total failure. At least Scousers recuperated half of the fee for Carroll.

 

[a_devil_inside]

always thought we should have got more for Beckham when we sold him to Real Madrid

 

[ghaliboy]

Why would Bebe's fee shock anyone. Nobody had a clue who he was and it's more the hope that he would live up to the price tag. Getting a bit of a raw deal being mentioned here.

Shocking transfer fees? Carroll by far takes the biscuit.

 

[alastair]

I wasn't shocked by Carroll at all. It was an horrific fee, but given Liverpool had one day to replace Torres, I wasn't entirely shocked they went out and massively over paid on a replacement.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Ferdinand for £30m back in 2002 seemed pretty crazy.

 

[Gio]

Has anyone mentioned Mendieta yet? That transfer actually makes Carroll transfer looks sensible. 48m EUR and was a total failure. At least Scousers recuperated half of the fee for Carroll.

I'd say there's a difference between a transfer being a fair reflection of a player's current standing (i.e. Mendieta was one of the very best midfielders in Europe before joining Lazio) and one we all knew at the time to be hopelessly over-priced (i.e. Carroll).

 

[Grinner]

Paul Stewart went for some crazy money.

 

[Gio]

Gianluigi Lentini - £13m was it?

 

[Moriarty]

Ferdinand for £30m back in 2002 seemed pretty crazy.

Rooney's transfer fee from Everton was eye-watering too. But the one that stunned me most was the £1 million that Cloughie paid for Trevor Francis. Nobody could believe then that any club, bar perhaps Real, would pay that amount for a player. Mind you, they said the same about the first £100,000 player too.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Also Shevchenko to the Russians and Veron maybe.

 

[Nick 0208 Ldn]

One somewhat mitigating factor to the Carroll deal is that it took place late in the January window and was an impulse of sorts.

Some of the others were clearly planned over time and had had plenty of thought put into them.

 

[Ruud10]

The all-time shocker has to be Andy Carroll.

At the time he had a great run of maybe 5 games?

Unbelievable. But what was even more insane was the profferred rationale: "Since we [Dalglish] sold Torres for 50m we made a profit of 15m on the whole thing when we bought Carroll." Yikes!

 

[Sarni]

Also Shevchenko to the Russians and Veron maybe.

You were shocked that Chelsea paid £30m for one of the best forwards in the world still pretty much in his prime, or that United were prepared to pay £28m for one of the best midfielders in the world?

 

[Name Changed]

Fletcher to Sunderland was crazy. I thought 30m+ for Berbatov was ridiculous also. Andy Carroll is the obvious one though. Mind blowing.

 

[Arruda]

I'd say there's a difference between a transfer being a fair reflection of a player's current standing (i.e. Mendieta was one of the very best midfielders in Europe before joining Lazio) and one we all knew at the time to be hopelessly over-priced (i.e. Carroll).

Exactly. Mendieta isn't a shock, rather a disappointment, that only the passing of time confirmed.

 

[Rowem]

Like many have said, Carroll was certainly the most "wtf?" transfer fee.

The Shearer fee was huge too. Obviously a great signing (some in this thread seem confused), but at the time it pretty much doubled the existing record transfer fee. I remember being stunned that a player could cost so much!

 

[Sarni]

Mendieta, Carroll etc. are a proof that you simply have to sell a player when a great offer comes in. Inter are absolute champions at wasting transfer opportunities - they could have sold Adriano for €40m+ when he was in his prime and ended up forcing him out for free a couple of years later when he deteriorated, could have sold Maicon for €25m+ and ended up letting him go for €3m, could have sold Cesar for €15m+ and released him for free, could have sold Sneijder for €30m+ and let him go for €6m a year later. They've literally given up on €150m+ and ended up having useless players after they've turned down those opportunities

 

[Gazza]

Dwight Yorke for 12.6 million. I was young at the time but I remember the fee surprising people. So, so worth it just for that first season.

The Overmars+Petit from Arsenal to Barcelona deal wasn't a shocking transfer fee (was it 30 million total?) but it was a shock to see Arsenal sell two of their best players in such a deal, didn't seem to happen very often.

 

[Nick 0208 Ldn]

Re: Fletcher to Sunderland

£12m? Wolves did well bearing in mind their newly relegated status yet Fletcher was likely to come through for Sunderland in a goalscoring sense which was something they had lacked since Bent first arrived, and he was certainly doing that until his injury.

If he was going to be their front line striker over a 2-3 year period it may not have been a bargain although equally not a complete shocker IMO.

 

[senorgregster]

Schmeichel for £500,000 was an incredible transfer as well.

Some great calls in this thread. This transfer didn't shock me but in my opinion this was our greatest transfer to date. Bargain for the best keeper of all time.

The one that shocked me the most was Cole on Teletext. Still remember sittings in Granny's living room seeing that one. Completely out the blue.

Carol hasn't sunk in. Did that really happen? I think not.

 

[fishfingers15]

Most of the Sunderland transfers recently were a bit meh. Kieran Richardson went for 6 Million and Craig Gordon went for like 12 Million and released on a free.

 

[Dante]

You can just about understand it when a Galactico goes for a ridiculous fee. Torres, Kaka, Ibrahimovic were all meant to be the unique missing pieces in world class teams. It's less easy to understand Carroll for £35m and Bent for £24m though. Those purchases were just mental on every conceivable level.