Arsenal and Liverpool among shrewdest movers during summer transfer window

The CIES Football Observatory's breakdown of the summer's biggest moves had some very interesting findings regarding Premier League clubs. Uruguayan international Lucas Torreira’s switch from Sampdoria to Arsenal is considered one of the Premier League’s smartest moves. The 22-year-old joined in a £26million deal. However, it’s reckoned ‘fair value’ would have been £37million. Liverpool paid Monaco around £49million for Fabinho, but the Brazilian international's ‘fair price’ was actually far in excess of that figure: a huge £65.7m. Indeed, Liverpool are considered one of the savviest operations around. Thibaut Courtois, with just one year left on his contract, pushed through a move to Real Madrid late in the Premier League window, finally getting the return to Spain he had desired. The Blues pocketed £35m (€40m) for the stopper, but according to CIES that was some £20m below what would be considered a fair deal (£55m). That made Courtois the worst-priced sale of the summer. Man City’s signing of Mahrez is considered to be the second biggest failure from a buying club, with City spending £25m over the odds on the Algerian winger. The Reds are also considered to have underpaid for both Xherdan Shaqiri and Alisson while receiving well over the odds for both Ings and Ward; the £8.1m excess received from Leicester for Ward covering the supposed £7.75m excess they splashed to land Naby Keita. Other key takeaways include: Everton spent £16.7m too much on Barcelona defender Yerry Mina - and also overpaid for Richarlison. West Ham paid £18.4m over the odds for Felipe Anderson and Issa Diop, their two record signings Joao Moutinho’s £5m move to Wolves being two-and-a-half times less than his ‘fair’ value Atletico Madrid and Barcelona both used release clauses to their advantage to land players well below value in the cases of Rodri and Clement Lenglet. Jefferson Lerma costing Bournemouth more than double his actual worth.

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