Dele Alli (£5m, MK Dons to Tottenham, 2015)
Denying the existence of an English tax on footballers would be futile: it’s real, and the army of generic homegrown players who have moved for extraordinary fees proves it.
The balancing factor, in this case at least, is residual snobbery towards the Football League. Alli was clearly a very talented player and will likely become one of the most successful of his generation, but appearing in League One somehow counted against him.
For context, in the same transfer window, Tottenham recouped the fee for Alli by selling full-back Kyle Naughton to Swansea.
Ryan Bertrand (£10m, Chelsea to Southampton, 2015)
Wastage at one club leads to opportunity for another, a theory which might be further proved if Chelsea graduates Nathaniel Chalobah and Dominic Solanke are successful at their new clubs (Watford and Liverpool respectively).
Bertrand, who had initially joined Southampton on loan, was an early example of what happens when a developing player is starved of first-team minutes. He fails to develop at a proper pace, decides to leave, and is then invariably sold for far less than his potential value.
Two years have passed since then and a new television deal has swollen the market further, but - given that Bertrand is now being hunted by Manchester City and Liverpool - it remains a pertinent example of big-club oversight.
Fernando Llorente (£5m, Sevilla to Swansea, 2016)
Undisclosed transfer fees are joyless and, at a time when transparency is particularly important, they really shouldn't be allowed. However, Llorente’s fee is assumed to have been minimal, and it could easily be argued that he was one of the 2016/17 Premier League’s most valuable players.
His wages probably aren’t incidental, but without his 15 goals from 33 league games last year, Swansea would have been relegated. Clearly, that left them at a net profit for a player who outperformed many of the forwards who cost considerably more.
Demarai Gray (£3.7m, Birmingham to Leicester, 2016)
An odd transfer and a stranger state of affairs. Gray was a known commodity before moving to Leicester, having been a fixture in the England age-group teams as a teeenager. Given his obvious promise, £3.7m was an absurd fee and asked serious questions of whoever allowed such a paltry release clause into his Birmingham contract.
To date, Gray can’t quite be said to have been a success at the King Power, but only a contrarian would deny that a surge is imminent. He’s grown frustrated with his lack of opportunities and, tellingly, Borussia Dortmund and Tottenham are watching that stand-off with interest. Either Leicester will get a very good player or make an extremely handsome profit. They've already turned down £20m from Bournemouth this summer.
Toby Alderweireld (£11.5m, Atletico Madrid to Tottenham, 2015)
The best centre-back in the Premier League and the cornerstone of Tottenham’s defensive rigidity under Mauricio Pochettino.
For a sense of perspective, consider some of the horrendous deals that have been struck for central defenders by other Premier League teams: Eliaquim Mangala (£42m), Nicolas Otamendi (£28.5m), Marcos Rojo (£16m). The circumstances may be different, but even Everton have just spent nearly £30m on Michael Keane.
There were some concerns over fragility raised by his injury record while on loan at Southampton, and he wasn’t a key player for Diego Simeone at Atletico. But Alderweireld still represents a big miss for Premier League clubs who, to this day, are willing to throw money away in pursuit of the kind of stability he provides.
N’Golo Kante (£5.6m, Caen to Leicester, 2015)
Hardly a transfer which is anyone is likely to forget - it’s almost Michu-esque in its notoriety.
One of the familiar complaints heard from Premier League clubs relates to their inability to find value. Other European sides are aware of their wealth and, obviously, see them coming from miles away. But the Kante signing was representative of originality and, sadly, also domestic clubs’ reluctance to recruit from beyond the beaten track. Eventually, even the £32m Chelsea paid Leicester for him in summer 2016 looked likely comparatively fine value.
John Stones (£1.3m, Barnsley to Everton, 2013)
A transfer that occurred during the same window in which QPR spent £12m on Chris Samba. It would be easy to portray the Stones signing as a punt on Everton’s part, a low-cost risk taken on a glinting youngster, but he would play 21 Premier League games the following season and was evidently ready for that level.
Of course, the Toffees went on to make a near £50m profit on him inside three-and-a-half years. Another example of how Football League pockmarks can hide inner beauty.
Philippe Coutinho (£8.5m, Inter to Liverpool, 2013)
There’s currently some revisionism about Coutinho; he was certainly on the periphery at San Siro when Liverpool signed him, but he was by no means an unknown. The season before, he had shone during a Liga loan spell with Espanyol and was already a full Brazil international.
It remains a smart piece of business on Liverpool’s part, but given that the player was almost immediately successful in England it speaks more of Inter’s dysfunction above any talent identification systems on Merseyside.
Christian Benteke (£7m, Genk to Aston Villa, 2012)
Regardless of what anyone thinks of Benteke’s career since leaving Villa, the decision to sign him from Belgium delayed their relegation for an extra two seasons. It’s not a coincidence that they fell so helplessly into the Championship immediately after he (and Fabian Delph) were sold.
Belgian football has a proven record for providing value, but imagine the fees that teams would now be prepared to pay for a forward of Benteke’s profile: a robust, skilful goalscorer, built seemingly specifically with the Premier League in mind? There’s inflation at work, but £7m remains an absolute steal. He's twice moved for around £30m since then.
Christian Eriksen (£12m, Ajax to Tottenham, 2013)
‘Remember when Spurs sold Gareth Bale and then – ha, ha, ha – wasted all the money on seven dreadful players,’ goes the narrative.
Hold on, though: Paulinho, Vlad Chiriches and Roberto Soldado were all failures but, on the basis that most transfers stand a coin flip’s chance of success, it was actually a fairly ordinary summer. Etienne Capoue was blighted by injury at White Hart Lane and has subsequently proven to be a solid performer at Watford. Nacer Chadli was actually highly productive at times, and Erik Lamela - when fit - is a valuable part of Mauricio Pochettino’s team to this day.
Plus Christian Eriksen, of course, who would cost somewhere between £80m and £100m were he to be sold by Tottenham in today’s market.
The fee Spurs paid was slightly skewed by contract pressure, with Eriksen having just a single year left on his deal at the time, but it remains extraordinary value (and an admirable reclamation job) on a player who was once assumed likely to cost the earth.
