Why The Most Expensive Soccer Players Of 2021 Haven’t Lived Up To The Hype

Much has been made of how Manchester United’s Jadon Sancho, Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku, and Manchester City’s Jack Grealish have failed to live up to their $100+ million transfer fees.

Sancho in particular has struggled, and still only has one Premier League goal to his name. But he is far from the only big money signing to have difficulties recently.

Of the ten biggest international transfers in 2021, only five have managed more than 1,000 minutes of league soccer this season, and only one of them, Tammy Abraham, is in their clubs’ top five best performers according to whoscored.com. Several players on the list have so far had even less of an impact on their clubs than Sancho has for Manchester United.

Very few of the 20 Premier League clubs’ all-time record signings are also those club’s best players. Watford’s Ismaila Sarr, Southampton’s Danny Ings (now at Aston Villa), Leicester City’s Youri Tielemans and Everton’s Richarlison are the only real candidates.

When it comes to player value, out of CIES football observatory’s top twenty most valuable players at the start of 2021, only Jadon Sancho, Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, and Chelsea’s Kai Havertz are in the top twenty-five all-time transfer fees.

Most of the players at the top of CIES’s most valuable player list have been developed by the club they currently play for, like Manchester City’s Phil Foden or Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood, or they were signed at a young age like Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.

Meanwhile, the top seven players in the 2021 Ballon d’Or could all be available on a free transfer either this summer or next.

Of course, free transfers aren’t really free, despite what Paris Saint-Germain fans might claim when they posted how the club didn’t pay a dime in transfer fees for Lionel Messi, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and Georginio Wijnaldum last summer. Free transfers often end up costing more in wages and signing on fees than regular transfers, sometimes making them no better value than when a transfer fee is paid.

High transfer fees on the other hand, are often paid for potential. Out of the 10 most expensive international transfers of 2021, all except for Raphael Varane and Romelu Lukaku are under 25 years old and have just made their first really big transfer. Six of the players on the list are still under 23

Only one of CIES’ most valuable players is over 25 years old. This means that when those players sign for a new club, they are not yet at the ability that justifies their fee, so it’s not surprising when, like Sancho and Havertz, they don’t win Player of the Year in their first season at a new club.

The disconnect between transfer fees and a player’s immediate impact seems larger than ever, especially as transfer fee inflation means that players could cost clubs double what they might have cost just a few seasons earlier.

With this gap between transfer fees and what actually happens on the pitch, using transfer fees to predict players’ impact on a team is becoming increasingly pointless. And labeling players like Sancho or Havertz “flops” after a few months at a new club is just as pointless too.