Checking on the most notable Premier League transfers of summer 2022

Gibbs-White was on a deal with Wolverhampton Wanderers, but the young attacking midfielder made his pre-transfer splash while on loan with Sheffield United down in the Championship. He scored 11 goals for the Blades and that gained the interest of Nottingham Forest, who were being freshly promoted from the Championship. Gibbs-White has seen his stock rise alongside the rising fortunes of Forest. Forest is competing for a Champions League spot in the 2024-25 season, and in 2024 Gibbs-White made his debut for England.

Brighton identifies talent outside the Premier League, and then helps move said talent to bigger clubs for hefty transfer fees. That was the case with Bissouma. Brighton signed the Malian international from Lille, and, after the defensive midfielder became a regular for the club, paved the way for his transfer to Tottenham Hotspur. Bissouma hasn’t been a day in, day out starter for Spurs, but he’s played plenty, including in both the Champions League and Europa League.

Speaking of “feeder clubs,” Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg is certainly that. These days, Americans emerging in Europe is not a novelty, and Aaronson was impressive enough with Salzburg to earn a transfer to the Premier League. Leeds United was feeling the pressure of trying to avoid relegation, but unfortunately that didn’t pan out. The club was relegated at the end of Aaronson’s first year with Leeds. He spent last season on loan with Union Berlin to play top-level football, but now has returned to Leeds and is playing a sizable role as Leeds looks likely to be promoted back to the Premier League.

It’s hard to stand out when you are merely a good Brazilian player. Carlos earned over 100 caps as a centre-back for Sevilla before making his move to Aston Villa. Villa may not be one of the richest Premier League clubs, but the Premier League is so financially formidable it is still one of the richest clubs in the world. Even so, the Carlos move has probably stung, even if the club has been fine. Carlos barely played his first season due to an Achilles injury, and while he did appear plenty in 2023-24 and to start 2024-25, during the winter transfer break Carlos moved to the Turkish league to play for Fenerbahce. Carlos turns 32 in 2025, and even for a centre-back that’s a reason for pause.

Wolves turned that Gibbs-White money right into a transfer for Guedes. Yes, Guedes is Portuguese, but believe it or not Nuno Espirito Santo was already out as manager. Prior to the 2024-25 season, Guedes spent most of his Wolves tenure on loan, either with Benfica or Villarreal. The former Valencia attacker has been a staple for Wolves for the 2024-25 campaign, though he hasn’t done enough to keep the club from having to fight tooth-and-nail to avoid relegation.

Zinchenko was an unknown when Manchester City signed him away from Ufa, though he had already debuted internationally for Ukraine. While the left-back/occasional midfielder never became a staple of City’s starting XI, the fact he was able to see the field as much as he did for such a talent-laden and successful club speaks to his talent. So does the fact that when he transferred from City, it was to fellow title contender Arsenal. Zinchenko was more involved with the Gunners than he was with City his first couple years, though further additions to the club’s talent pool has started to, once again, push him into an on-again, off-again role.

Aguerd joined West Ham from Rennes, so the Moroccan international was not exactly a big name, even if he earned one of the biggest transfer fees in West Ham history. The centre-back had a role for the Hammers of the “play in the Premier League sometimes, show up more in cup ties and European competition” ilk. An ankle injury played a role in that, to be fair. Things are nebulous at the moment, as West Ham loaned the soon-to-be 29-year-old Aguerd to Real Sociedad for the 2024-25 season.

Aguerd was one of the biggest transfer fees for West Ham…until the club sent out a smidge more a month later to bring in Scamacca. The striker was coming off a breakthrough season in Italy, scoring 16 goals for Sassuolo. England didn’t take for Scamacca. While he scored five goals in the Conference League in 2022-23, he injured his knee and missed the end of the season. The club then shipped Scamacca to Atalanta after one season. While he regained his goal-scoring form back in Serie A, a torn ACL ended up 2024-25 season early and raised real questions about his durability.

Botman proved himself as a young centre-back with Lille, earning a big-money move to newly-rich (or newly-super-rich, at least) Newcastle United. Immediately, Botman proved himself a staple for his new club. Unfortunately, like Scamacca, his knee would not cooperate. Botman tore his ACL in March 2024 and only returned to action in December of that year.

Onana was also playing for Lille when he came over to England. Man, Lille must have had quite the defense there for a couple years. With all due respect for Botman, Onana was even more intriguing, considering the fact he isn’t even turning 24 until this August. The same year the defensive midfielder signed with Everton he played in the World Cup for Belgium. Unfortunately for Everton, when you nail a signing with a young, promising player, clubs with more success (and more money) come knocking. During the summer of 2024, Onana moved to Aston Villa for a transfer fee of £50 million.

While Zinchenko had already shown what he could do in the Premier League, by signing Vieira, Arsenal was betting on a young Portuguese player yet to play outside of his native country. The undersized attacking midfielder had popped at Porto, but failed to make the same splash with the Gunners. In fact, in order to get him playing time, Arsenal loaned Vieira back to Porto for the 2024-25 season.

Scamacca was one of the biggest transfer fees in West Ham history…until it signed Paqueta a month later. In fact, Paqueta’s fee is the heftiest the club has ever paid. We get it, though. This is a guy who has played for Brazil, including at the 2022 World Cup. The move from Lyon to West Ham has worked out for player and club, even with some “betting breaches” concerns that popped up last May. That hasn’t stopped him from being a linchpin of the West Ham lineup in 2024-25.

It really does speak to the overarching wealth of the Premier League that Wolves could drop this big of a transfer fee on somebody. Also, it speaks to the club's ongoing preoccupation with Portuguese players not thwarted by the end of the Santo regime. Credit where it’s due, though — Wolves were onto something. A middle-of-the-field metronome, Nunes only spent one season with Wolverhampton before Manchester City swooped in to drop £53 million to bring Nunes over. That was a “the-rich-get-richer” move, as Nunes has only been in the lineup intermittently, but City doesn’t add players to the squad for kicks.

Of course, City doesn’t nail it every time. Phillips had been a very good player, even making appearances for England, but he had only played for Leeds domestically and only had a couple of prime years left. More to the point, he’s a defensive midfielder, and City already had Rodri, the best defensive midfielder in the world. This was a luxury move, and Phillips barely has seen the field for City. In fact, he’s spent the 2024-25 season on loan to Ipswich, a club about to be relegated.

Monetarily speaking, you could say City swapped Jesus for Phillips, but all things considered that swap did not pan out for them. Of course, the two do fundamentally different things. Jesus is a forward, and he had a couple seasons with double-digit goals for City. Arsenal brought the Brazilian in, and he notched 11 goals in his first season. Since then, though, Jesus’ scoring and playing time have fallen off. Also, as we’ll get to shortly, City was not worried about goals when they made this move.

When City brought Sterling in from Liverpool, it paid the biggest transfer fee for an English player at the time. That fee was, reportedly, £44 million, with a potential £5 million more in the mix in terms of add-ons. It was a tidy bit of business, given that Sterling was just entering his prime and would win the FWA’s Footballer of the Year award for the 2018-19 season. City also made a wise decision when the club got him transferred over to Chelsea. Sterling has not clicked in the same way with the Blues, and while Arsenal agreed to bring him in on loan for the 2024-25 season, he’s been a secondary piece of the puzzle.

Three days before Jesus was shipped out, Haaland was brought in by City. It feels important to note that this fee number triggered the release clause Haaland had in his contract with Borussia Dortmund. The club would have probably been happy to spend more if need be, and it could have spent twice as much and justified it. Haaland scored a Premier League-record 36 goals in his first season with the club, plus 12 more in the Champions League. Sometimes fans feel frustrated that the striker “only scores goals,” but he’s not even 25 yet and is the best goal scorer in the world. You can chill out a bit.

This is the first Manchester United signing on this list, but 2022 is also the summer that derailed the future of the storied club, and both began Erik ten Hag’s tenure and doomed it. Martinez, given his fee and his play, is the only non-egregious signing we will get to. The undersized centre-back was just entering his prime, had played well for Ajax, and even played internationally for Argentina. When available, Martinez has been good, but “when available” is shouldering a heavy load. The guy simply has not stayed healthy, and he unfortunately tore his ACL this past January.

At the time, Isak did sort of feel like a, “We’re rich, we don’t care” move from Newcastle. Isak earned a club-record fee, and while he was a promising young striker, this was a lot to spend on promise. The Swede’s peak season with Real Sociedad had come when he scored 17 goals. Well, Newcastle was onto something. Isak scored 10 goals in 22 games in his first Premier League season and since then has rounded into one of the best strikers in the world. He’s on pace for his second 20-goal season in a row.

If not for Manchester United’s spending this summer, we’d be talking more about Chelsea’s wild swings. Of course, Chelsea has continued to rework its lineup every year, and also its moves have borne more fruit. For example, the club may have spent a bit too much on Cucurella to bring him over from Brighton, but the left-back has been good for the club, and has played fairly regularly. He’s still only 26, and he was one of the stars of Spain’s Euro 2024-winning side. Not every move is a steal or a disaster. Some are simply fine.

If you’ve scored 20 goals for Brazil before turning 30, you’re a good football player. Richarlison had a couple 13-goal seasons with Everton, leading Tottenham Hotspur to bring him on board. His first season with Spurs was a struggle, but he was vying with Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min for touches, and 2022 was the year of the winter World Cup in Qatar. Since then Richarlison has been open about struggling with depression and considering retiring after Brazil’s elimination from that tournament. The 2023-24 season went much better, but 2024-25 has been a struggle again. It might be best for both club and player if Richarlison moves on.

Nunez is football’s grand Rorschach test. Do you see a striker who drives play, puts shots on target, and creates havoc in the box for opposing defenders? Or do you see a guy who sometimes absolutely flubs an easy shot and occasionally looks like he has never played football a day in his life? The Uruguayan — who Liverpool brought over from Benfica — is a trip to watch play. However, it does seem Arne Slot does not like Nunez as much as Jurgen Klopp did, so his time with Liverpool may be short. Somebody else will happily embrace the “Agent of Chaos.”

It was also bold, even a bit bananas, to shell out a transfer fee of this size to a young centre-back. That’s Chelsea for you. Fofana, while talented, had already missed time with a broken leg while at Leicester City, and unfortunately for Chelsea that did not prove a fluke. Fofana has barely been able to see the pitch for Chelsea, including missing all of the 2023-24 season with a torn ACL. At least he’s still only 24.

Well, now we get to end things by dunking on Manchester United a couple times. There was a time when paying a massive transfer fee to bring in Casemiro would have made sense. That time would have been, oh, around 2016 or so, when the defensive midfielder had emerged as a star for Real Madrid and Brazil. However, when ten Hag and United brought Casemiro in during the summer of 2022, he had turned 30 that prior February. He was a viable Premier League starter for exactly one season. By the 2024-25 season, Casemiro would emerge as unplayable against above-average clubs owing to his loss of athleticism and quickness. This move never made sense, and it played out worse than expected.

In hindsight, the day ten Hag suggested he wanted to drop £82 million on a transfer fee to bring in his former Ajax player Antony he should have been sacked on the spot. The forward had been fine at Ajax — fine! — and he was young, but to shell out this much money was unfathomable. This move was never going to work out, but it’s gone even worse than imagined. He’s contributed five Premier League goals, antagonized fans, and was jettisoned off to Real Betis on loan in January. Antony has proven to be one of the worst transfers in Premier League history.