Even in an era of relentless transfer inflation, a fee north of £20m rarely counts as a bargain. Roma’s summer move for Rodrigo Mora may be the exception. The teenage playmaker had been on the radar of Europe’s elite since starring for Porto’s B-team at 15, and Porto had braced themselves for his €70m (£59.5m) release clause to be triggered in the summer of 2025. It never happened, and Mora subsequently fell out of favour under the new head coach, Francesco Farioli. Roma pounced with an offer of €25m (£21.4m), plus a 50% sell-on fee that can be bought out. Mora himself was eager to work under Gian Piero Gasperini. “He played a big part in my decision to come here because he likes players with my qualities, and I’m a fan of the way he wants his teams to play,” he said. The early signs are encouraging: Mora scored his first Roma goal against Lecce as the Giallorossi made a flying start in Serie A.
At the other end of the age scale, Deportivo’s decision to pay a nominal £1.3m for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang looks an obvious piece of business on the surface. The former Arsenal and Dortmund striker is 37, though, and has had a nomadic career since leaving Barcelona, with an unsuccessful Chelsea spell followed by two seasons at Marseille sandwiching a year in Saudi Arabia. Even so, his goal return has remained impressive, with 44 across the past three campaigns, and he has reportedly accepted a greatly reduced salary to play regular La Liga football. Aubameyang has scored five goals in seven league games for Dépor, whose ambitious project appears a perfect fit.
Promotion to the Premier League is an expensive business, and this summer Ipswich, Coventry and Hull collectively spent £450m net on players. Against that backdrop, Hull’s £3.5m move for the 24-year-old Sweden international Elliot Stroud looks like excellent value. The wide player stood out for Mjällby as the small-town club won the Swedish title last year, a run that earned him a place in Graham Potter’s World Cup squad. Sergej Jakirovic identified him as a key squad addition after Hull’s playoff final success. “He’s a very good player; he’s very versatile,” the Hull manager said. “He can play full-back, wing-back, left-winger, and in the middle. He’s a runner too, so I think he will suit us very well.” Stroud has provided a pacy creative outlet for Jakirovic’s hard-working side.
Germany’s promoted clubs took a very different approach. The Bundesliga’s trio of new arrivals spent a combined £7.2m net on signings — a figure in sharp contrast to their English counterparts. Schalke, the second-tier champions, secured some notable names on loan, including boyhood fan Robin Gosens, but holding midfielder Satoshi Tanaka was their most expensive permanent recruit at €1m. The 24-year-old represents something of a gamble, with his only previous experience of German football coming since January at Fortuna, who were relegated to the third tier. He still caught the eye of Schalke’s director of football, Youri Mulder. “His work rate and intensity fit our game really well,” Mulder said. Tanaka’s battling qualities helped Schalke hold Bayern Munich to a goalless draw on his Bundesliga debut, and he could be key to whether they stay clear of trouble.
Leeds have a clear recruitment model: reliable, experienced players with strong physical attributes, preferably from the Bundesliga. Swiss centre-back Nico Elvedi, signed from Mönchengladbach for £6.8m, fits that mould perfectly. Daniel Farke might have anticipated an adjustment period for a player who had spent 11 years at Gladbach, but Elvedi has settled quickly alongside fellow newcomer Tarik Muharemovic, mostly on the left of Farke’s back three. It is a welcome reunion with his former Gladbach coach. “It was just one year but I loved him as a manager,” Elvedi said of Farke. “I learned a lot from him and I will learn a lot now.”
Paderborn returned to the Bundesliga with a bang after shocking Wolfsburg in the promotion/relegation playoff, and smashed their transfer record — which, admittedly, stood at only £700,000 — to sign both Gabriel Vidovic and striker Marvin Pieringer for €3m each. Vidovic, a former Bayern Munich academy talent brought through by Julian Nagelsmann, is an intriguing prospect. The Croatian playmaker could not become a regular at Bayern, and a successful loan at Dinamo Zagreb led to another chance at Mainz, where he barely featured and Bayern cut the loan short. A permanent return to Dinamo followed, and the Bundesliga looked a distant prospect until Paderborn pounced. “His sporting CV speaks for itself,” said their sporting director, Sebastian Lange. For a club with limited means, it is a risk worth taking given the ceiling Nagelsmann once spotted in him.
Ligue 1’s function as a development pool is well established, and Strasbourg — a partner club to Chelsea — are closely tied to that model, with four of their summer signings drawn from the spare stock at Cobham while Valentín Barco and Emmanuel Emegha went in the other direction. Giovanni Reyna, signed for £2.6m, feels like a different kind of project. Once a heavily hyped youngster who thrived alongside Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland at Dortmund, the 23-year-old has been stalled by injuries and inconsistency, making only four league starts in his solitary season at Gladbach. He has begun promisingly in France, scoring his first Strasbourg goal in the 6-2 rout of Troyes in early September.
Monaco, another club with a partner-club pipeline, paid £4.3m for Flávio Nazinho. The attacking left-back was once touted as the next Nuno Mendes and was called up to Sporting’s first team by Ruben Amorim, but made only 11 appearances before drifting back into the reserves. An initial loan to Cercle Brugge in 2023 became permanent for €2m the following summer, and regular game time delivered four goals and eight assists last season. Monaco moved quickly, and Nazinho has made an immediate impact, striking up a left-flank partnership with Stanis Idumbo as Filipe Luís’s side sit top of Ligue 1. A Conference League campaign will offer further chances to trust his attacking instincts, and potentially a first Portugal call-up.
Real Betis moved for the prolific Troy Parrott, who quickly showed his worth with a winner against Real Madrid, but the Ireland international cost €20m — a fee that would surely have been higher had he been heading back to Spurs rather than to Seville. Left-back Fran García may prove the real steal at £3.2m plus 50% of any future sale, as Madrid cleared out fringe players. At 27 he is approaching his prime and has plenty of big-match experience, featuring more than 100 times for Madrid and playing two full top-flight campaigns on loan at Rayo Vallecano. García was linked with Fulham this summer, and Álvaro Arbeloa may come to regret allowing Betis to swoop.
Everton endured a traumatic transfer deadline day that left David Moyes with one senior striker and a squad desperately short of depth. They did at least wrap up a late £4.3m deal for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, a versatile addition at a decent price. The former Arsenal full-back’s arrival may not have soothed fans’ frustrations, but his late equaliser against Manchester United may already have repaid a decent chunk of the fee.
Not every bargain is obvious at the time. Last year’s list offers some encouragement: Robin Roefs kept 10 clean sheets in 35 league games as Sunderland secured European football, Berke Ozer kept a league-best 13 clean sheets in his first season as Lille finished third, and Carlos Soler scored in Real Sociedad’s Copa del Rey final shootout victory over Atlético. Adrian Truffert, meanwhile, settled quickly in Bournemouth’s rebuilt defence to help them qualify for Europe, and was called up by Zinedine Zidane for the Nations League.