In the news-hungry world of modern football, transfers – whether fanciful or fully formed – are gold. It can feel as though some fans spend the long stretches between the official transfer windows impatiently wading through matches before the relentless sequence of buying and selling begins once again.
While the Premier League’s summer transfer window opened as early as 14th June, most European leagues had to wait until 1st July to complete any deals in which money exchanges hands. Now that the summer is in full swing, clubs from every corner of the continent can trim and tweak their squads.
Prodigious teenagers, legendary veterans and every type of professional in between have been involved in the churn of personnel this year. Here’s a closer look at each and every deal between clubs from Europe’s top leagues during the 2024 window.
July 16
Southampton have been desperate to sign Flynn Downes all summer. The 25-year-old midfielder made a positive impression during his loan spell on the south coast last season, establishing himself as a regular in Russell Martin’s exciting team which won promotion to England’s top flight.
As GIVEMESPORT exclusively revealed in mid-June, Southampton were always in ‘pole position’ to prise Downes away from West Ham. The Saints got their man a month later for the princely sum of £18m. The former England under-20 international represents the club’s eighth arrival since securing promotion via a play-off final victory over Leeds United in May.
July 15
During Manchester United’s defensive injury crisis last season, Erik ten Hag was forced to draw upon every corner of his squad. Willy Kambwala hit double digits for appearances across all competitions but turned down a contract extension to move to La Liga side Villarreal in search of more consistent first-team opportunities. United baked a buy-back clause into a deal for the 19-year-old centre-back which could rise to £9.6m.
Neither Nuno Tavares nor Albert Sambi Lokonga have been able to break into Arsenal’s senior side. The talented pair of 24-year-olds spent last season out on loan at Nottingham Forest and Luton Town respectively, and will be on their travels again this term. While Tavares has moved to Lazio on an initial loan agreement which includes an obligation to buy if certain conditions are met, Lokonga is also keen to make his temporary stay at Sevilla permanent.
July 14
After weeks of speculation, Joshua Zirkzee finally agreed a five-year deal with Manchester United. One year after splashing £72m on Rasmus Hojlund, United have committed another considerable sum on a young striker based in Serie A who does not boast a reputation as a prolific finisher.
More adept at dropping deep and dribbling past opponents with a deceptively low centre of gravity for a 6’4 forward, Zirkzee scored nine non-penalty league goals for a Bologna side that upset the odds of qualifying for the Champions League last season. The 23-year-old Dutch international will be limited to the Europa League at United next season after completing a £36.5m move.
July 13
Shortly before the 2022 World Cup, Mehdi Taremi’s father broke down in tears on Iranian TV. “I regret that this boy did not go to European football much earlier,” he spluttered. “It’s all my fault.” The prolific forward only moved to Portuguese side Rio Ave in 2019 when he was 27. Shortly before turning 32, Taremi is preparing for his first season in one of Europe’s top five leagues with Inter Milan after coming to the end of his contract with Porto.
Liam Delap’s father has not been forced into a public sobbing by his kid’s career trajectory just yet. The son of the Premier League’s iconic long-throw specialist Rory Delap has been prised away from Manchester City’s bench by promoted outfit Ipswich Town.
July 12
Renato Veiga’s versatility is his greatest strength. The left-footed Portugal under-21 international can not only seamlessly switch positions on the pitch, but is just as comfortable slipping into any of the five languages which he speaks fluently. In a hastily constructed, cosmopolitan Chelsea squad, Veiga’s multilingual talents will be priceless.
The Blues coughed up around £12m for the services of a player who came through Sporting CP’s academy and thrived in midfield and defence at Swiss side Basel last term. Chelsea had been keen on Bologna’s progressive centre-back Riccardo Calafiori at the start of the summer. The Italian’s impressive displays at Euro 2024 cranked up his potential price tag, prompting Chelsea to pivot to Veiga.
July 11
Thomas Tuchel spent much of the summer of 2023 publicly broadcasting Bayern Munich’s desperate need for what he described as “a real defensive midfielder”. The Champions League-winning coach wanted someone “who thinks very defensively, takes care that nothing happens at the back and who is more concerned with defence than attacking the opposition box”. The £42.3m arrival of Joao Palhinha from Fulham perfectly fits that brief – but Tuchel is no longer in Bavaria.
The combative Portuguese midfielder was on the cusp of joining Tuchel in Munich last summer, only for the deal to fall through at the last minute. Vincent Kompany is now at the Bayern helm and will reap the rewards of a player who made exactly 300 tackles across his two seasons in the Premier League, per FBref. No other player in the division made more than 191 over the same period.
July 10
Only two players in the history of football have ever commanded a larger fee than Philippe Coutinho. The former Liverpool playmaker eventually cost Barcelona £142m when he swapped Anfield for Iberia in the biggest sale ever made by a Premier League club. After forcing through a dream move which had been delayed for six months in January 2018, Coutinho emphatically failed to live up to his hulking fee.
Aston Villa made the surprising decision to snap up the ageing Brazilian after a moderately successful six-month loan spell in 2022 for £17m. But once again, the ephemeral midfielder struggled for consistent form. Following a season-long loan in Qatar with Al Duhail last season, Coutinho will temporarily return to his boyhood club Vasco da Gama this term.
July 9
Moise Kean has accumulated more than £65m in transfer fees – and that’s not including the two tractors that Juventus promised but failed to deliver to his father. The former Everton misfit secured an £11m move to Fiorentina in a deal decidedly lacking in any mention of farmyard machinery.
In all of Kean’s various transfers, he has never ended up at Nottingham Forest. In that sense, the Italian international is in the minority. Forest have bought and sold a swollen glut of players since returning to the Premier League in 2022. Every area of the pitch has been bolstered on multiple occasions, but the Tricky Trees have stockpiled goalkeepers like few other clubs. The towering 6’8 figure of Carlos Miguel is the eighth shot-stopper Forest have signed in three years.
July 8
It’s been a summer of upheaval for Borussia Dortmund. The surprise Champions League finalists parted ways with head coach Edin Terzic and said goodbye to the legendary figures of Marco Reus and Mats Hummels. Waldemar Anton’s £19m move from Stuttgart represents the first transfer of Nuri Sahin’s reign. Hailed by Germany’s national team manager Julian Nagelsmann as “an extremely stable defender with a big heart”, Anton captained Stuttgart to second place in last season’s Bundesliga, finishing three places and 10 points above his new employers.
Over the last two seasons, Arsenal’s promising young striker Mika Biereth played for three different clubs and still didn’t earn a single minute for the Gunners. Without a clear route into the first team, Biereth has made his final loan spell at Sturm Graz permanent, moving to the Austrian club for a record fee of £4m.
July 7
The race for Michael Olise’s signature has been fierce for several years. While Manchester United and Arsenal sniffed around, Chelsea came as close as agreeing personal terms with the fleet-footed winger in June. But Bayern Munich eventually emerged as Olise’s long-awaited next destination.
After signing a deal worth an initial £45m before various add-ons could take it to £50.8m, Olise explained that he had plumped for Bayern to “win as many titles as possible”. The record Bundesliga champions relinquished their domestic crown last season to Bayer Leverkusen, ending the 2023/24 campaign without a single trophy for the first time since 2012.
July 6
When Wolverhampton Wanderers plucked Max Kilman out of non-league football in August 2018, Maidenhead United received £40,000 for the towering centre-back. Less than six years later, Wolves sold the same player for 1,000 times that fee. The Midlands club won’t bank all the money from Kilman’s £40m move to West Ham as Maidenhead cleverly included a sell-on clause in the initial deal for the defender.
Kilman only missed one of Wolves’ 23 Premier League games with Julen Lopetegui in charge and will get to link up with the Spanish manager again in east London. “He’s a top-class coach and someone I learned a lot from,” Kilman explained upon his arrival at West Ham, “and I am confident I will continue to improve as a player under his management here.”
July 5
Brighton’s technical director David Weir has been very busy in the opening weeks of the summer transfer window. The astutely run club have appointed a new manager and splashed more than £70m on three new arrivals. Mats Wieffer became the latest transfer when his £26.5m move from Feyenoord was announced on 5th July. Only missing out on the Dutch squad at Euro 2024 through injury, the 24-year-old has been hailed as “one of the best deep-lying midfielders in Europe” by Brighton’s Weir.
The Seagulls’ south coast rivals Southampton have been just as active in the early off-season after securing promotion back to England’s top flight. Nathan Wood arrived from Swansea City as the club’s third new centre-back in a deal worth £3m.
July 4
Arsenal’s first arrival of the summer is a familiar face. David Raya won the Golden Glove with the Gunners last term, keeping an unrivalled 16 Premier League clean sheets as Mikel Arteta’s side narrowly missed out on their first top-flight title in 20 years. That parsimonious record – which owed as much to the 10 outfield players as the goalkeeper himself – was achieved during Raya’s initial loan spell. To avoid overspending in last summer’s window, Arsenal struck a deal with Brentford to ensure that they would only have to pay Raya’s £27m release clause this year.
Lille didn’t pay a penny to acquire the services of Ethan Mbappe. Kylian’s 17-year-old brother left Paris Saint-Germain at the end of his contract in the same summer as his sibling. While Mbappe Sr made his long-awaited switch to Real Madrid, Ethan stayed in Ligue 1, joining up with a Lille side that has a history of trusting young talent.
July 3
Everton have been surprisingly active in the early days of the transfer window. After freeing up some funds through the sales of Lewis Dobbin and Ben Godfrey, Sean Dyche has been allowed to bring in Marseille’s versatile forward Iliman Ndiaye for a hefty sum of £16.9m. Now an established Senegal international, the French-born dribbler previously plied his trade in England’s fifth tier with Boreham Wood.
On the same day that Marseille cashed in on Ndiaye, the French club under the stewardship of former Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi brought in Brest’s Lilian Brassier on loan. The French centre-back scored as many league goals as Ndiaye could muster last season (three).
Much like Ndiaye, Southampton’s new centre-back Ronnie Edwards has experience in the lower reaches of England’s football pyramid. The 21-year-old came through at Barnet but convinced the newly promoted Saints to pay £3m after an impressive campaign for Peterborough in League One.
July 2
In an uncharacteristically proactive move from Daniel Levy’s Tottenham Hotspur, the north London outfit reached an agreement with Leeds United to secure the services of Archie Gray. The prodigious 18-year-old was also pursued by Brentford, but Spurs won the race for the England under-21 international, forking out an initial fee of £25m on the teenager. Leeds released a tear-stained statement explaining how everyone at the club was “heartbroken to see one of our own depart” after Tottenham triggered Gray’s release clause.
Leicester City were reluctant to lose their manager Enzo Maresca to Chelsea in the summer and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has followed the same path. The 25-year-old English midfielder helped Leicester win the Championship with a team-high 14 assists last term and will now go up against his boyhood club in the 2024/25 Premier League campaign.
July 1
As the summer transfer window opened across the continent, the cash began to flow far more liberally. The Premier League trio of Newcastle, Aston Villa and Chelsea went to great pains to generate as much income as possible before the soft deadline of 30th June. They didn’t wait long to start buying again.
Aston Villa spent more than £23m on three players to kickstart July. The prodigious talents of Samuel Iling-Junior and Enzo Barrenechea arrived from Juventus while the more senior option of Ross Barkley was prised away from Luton Town. Newcastle splashed £28m on Lewis Hall alone, making the 19-year-old’s loan deal permanent despite an underwhelming debut campaign on Tyneside. Chelsea may have lost one teenager but added another in the form of Barcelona’s academy graduate Marc Guiu.
June 30
The first, unofficial deadline of the summer transfer window was a busy one. Newcastle United were the most active of several Premier League clubs desperately scrambling to secure the funds needed to avoid any breaches of the division’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) ahead of the end of the financial year.
The Magpies banked £65m from the sales of Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh, sneaking both deals through just before July began. Chelsea also cashed in on their promising young academy product Omari Hutchinson, selling the 20-year-old to newly promoted Ipswich Town for an initial fee of £20m. Aston Villa parted ways with a more established figure, sanctioning the departure of star midfielder Douglas Luiz to Juventus for £42.4m.
June 29
Aston Villa’s 18-year-old academy product Omari Kellyman had been afforded less than 200 minutes of senior football, yet was still able to command a sum of £19m when moving to Chelsea this summer. The towering attacking midfielder impressed in the Premier League’s under-21 division, racking up seven goals in 11 appearances last season, but his hefty price has come as a surprise to many.
Sergino Dest didn’t cost PSV Eindhoven a penny. The US international never settled at Barcelona after moving to Catalonia from Ajax in 2020 under the express demands of manager Ronald Koeman. After the Dutch coach was sacked, Barcelona couldn’t find another club willing to commit a transfer fee to the acquisition of Dest. PSV snapped the 23-year-old up once his contract with the Spanish side expired.
June 28
Ian Maatsen started the summer wracked by devastation. After losing the Champions League final to Real Madrid, a game in which he gifted the Spanish giants their second goal, Borussia Dortmund’s Chelsea loanee was left out of Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands squad for Euro 2024. Before the end of June, Maatsen had earned a spot on the Dutch roster, replacing the injured Frenkie de Jong, and was the subject of a £37.5m move to Aston Villa.
Hakim Ziyech is all too aware of how quickly things can change in football – particularly at Chelsea. The Moroccan playmaker had a deadline day move to Paris Saint-Germain in January 2023 fall through due to an administrative error. Ziyech eventually secured a loan to Galatasaray and will permanently join the Turkish champions this summer.
June 27
Five years after scoring fewer goals for Newcastle United than Ciaran Clark, two years on from watching Real Madrid as a fan in the stands and 12 months after suffering a second consecutive relegation, Joselu fired his boyhood club to the La Liga and Champions League titles. “My dreams are not as beautiful as today has been,” he gushed after Madrid’s triumph over Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium.
Real Madrid made Joselu’s loan move from Espanyol permanent on 27th June, exercising a £1.3m release clause in his contract. One short day later, the 34-year-old striker was sold to Qatari side Al-Gharafa for the same fee.
June 26
Despite acting as the goalkeeper for a Sheffield United side which broke the record for the most goals conceded in a single Premier League season, Wes Foderingham managed to stay in the division after securing a move to West Ham United once his contract with the Blades ended in June. The beleaguered shot-stopper didn’t have much protection, facing an average of almost seven shots on target per game last term.
If Foderingham’s move was a surprise, Bayer Leverkusen’s capture of Andrea Natali promises to be a coup. The highly rated 16-year-old Italian centre-back was lured away from Barcelona to the Bundesliga champions after contract discussions stalled. Barcelona’s financial offer for Natali was, in the words of his agent Vincenzo Raiola, “very, very far from what many teams in Europe proposed”.
June 25
As Toni Kroos was afforded a grand farewell from Real Madrid, Nacho Fernandez watched on in envy. The club captain hadn’t yet finalised his move to Al-Qadsiah in the Saudi Pro League and so couldn’t officially confirm his departure. “I would have loved to say goodbye to the Bernabeu like Kroos had,” Nacho later sighed.
Plans are in the works for an understated farewell at Madrid’s training ground, which is more befitting the career of a long-serving academy graduate who was never considered to be an undisputed first-choice option at the club. But that perennial status as a reliable utility player didn’t stop Nacho from lauding his own career. “I consider myself one of the best,” the defender claimed. “I give myself a 10.”
June 24
Jack Harrison wasn’t short of reasons for extending his loan spell at Everton this summer. “I think the club in general,” the Leeds United winger explained, “the fans, the staff, the manager, my teammates.” Everton’s delicate financial position is one glaring explanation as to why the Toffees haven’t made the move for Harrison permanent.
Romain Perraud hasn’t played for Southampton since they suffered the cruel fate of relegation in the summer of 2023 and won’t reap the rewards of the club’s return to England’s top flight this year. After an underwhelming loan spell at Nice, the French left-back only started two league games for the side with the best defence in Ligue 1, Perraud has moved to Real Betis in a £3m deal.
June 23
One day after Everton spent £9m on Aston Villa’s Tim Iroegbunam, the Midlands club returned the favour by coughing up £10m for one of the Toffees’ scarcely used academy products. Lewis Dobbin was the subject of this particular example of creative accounting. Unlike Iroegbunam, Dobbin did manage to have an impact on the past campaign, emerging off the bench to double Everton’s lead in a spirited 2-0 victory over Chelsea in December.
Sean Dyche seemed to be more enamoured with the “very authentic manner” of Dobbin’s celebration, which did not include any “silly dances”. If Iroegbunam does get a goal at Goodison Park, he would be best advised to choose his next move very carefully.
June 22
Despite being in such dire financial straits that they were deducted eight points for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations, Everton were able to fund a £9m move for Aston Villa’s Tim Iroegbunam. Part of the same talented generation which produced Chelsea’s Carney Chukwuemeka, Iroegbunam was limited to just one Premier League start during the 2023/24 campaign. As a homegrown player, the deal represents ‘pure profit’ for Villa.
This was the first of numerous exchanges of academy graduates between English clubs trying to balance their books ahead of 30th June – the end of the financial year. Arsenal didn’t demand a fee when they let long-serving goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo make his loan move to Wrexham permanent.
June 21
Marseille’s all-time record signing Vitinha – the Portuguese striker rather than Paris Saint-Germain’s creative midfielder – never settled in the south of France. Responsible for just six goals in 43 appearances, Vitinha was offloaded to Genoa in January. Despite an injury-riddled six months which only produced two goals, the Serie A side made that deal permanent in June. Marseille lost half of their £27m investment on Vitinha in 18 underwhelming months.
Built in the same mould as Germany’s Euro 2024 striker Niclas Fullkrug, Tim Kleindienst scored as many Bundesliga goals last season for newly promoted Heidenheim as the Borussia Dortmund forward (12). Borussia Monchengladbach only boasted one double-digit scorer last term and so secured Kleindienst’s services in the off-season.
June 20
Rober Gonzalez’s loan spell in the Eredivisie with NEC Nijmegen didn’t get off to the best start, to say the least. The Real Betis academy product came on for the final 25 minutes in the opening home game of the season while his new employers led Excelsior 3-2. Gonzalez watched on as the visitors scored twice to steal three points.
A sticky period of adaptation gave way to a windfall in the second half of the season. When NEC travelled to the home of Dutch giants Ajax, it was Gonzalez who scored a 95th-minute equaliser to secure a famous 2-2 draw. The Spaniard’s tally of 10 goals helped NEC climb up to sixth place, the club’s highest league finish in more than two decades. Despite reports of some reticence from Gonzalez, NEC made his loan deal permanent in June.
June 19
Never let it be said that Luca Waldschmidt is not a trier. The slight German forward promised to “give 111%” to his new employers, FC Koln. A former senior international, who was tipped to have a big future after excelling for Freiburg shortly before the pandemic, never lived up to the £12.7m fee which Benfica coughed up in 2020. Injuries have plagued Waldschmidt since he returned to Germany with Wolfsburg and now the 28-year-old has been forced to drop into the second tier to help Koln return to the Bundesliga. Bayer Leverkusen’s promising teenager Noah Mbamba is also preparing for a campaign in 2. Bundesliga, but has only signed for Fortuna Dusseldorf on loan.
June 18
AC Milan and Stuttgart, runners-up in Serie A and the Bundesliga respectively, quickly secured loan deals for a pair of promising youngsters. While Marko Lazetic will hone his craft in Serbia with FK TSC, Stuttgart’s teenage midfielder Laurin Ulrich heads to freshly promoted SSV Ulm in Germany’s second tier.
Tete Morente was the master of his own future. The Elche fan favourite ended his time with the Spanish club after four years in Alicante. Snapped up on a free transfer by Serie A outfit Lecce, the fleet-footed forward may have a new home but will never forget the side that gave him his first taste of top-flight football. “From a distance, you will have one more Elche native forever,” Morente wrote on social media.
June 17
Chelsea never waste any time wading into the transfer market under the volatile ownership of BlueCo. The capital club were thought to be closing in on Brazilian right-back Pedro Lima only to be gazumped by Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite finishing eight places and 17 points behind Chelsea in the 2023/24 Premier League season, Wolves managed to convince the Sport Recife defender to move to Molineux. While the deal was confirmed by the Brazilian second-tier club on 17th June, Lima cannot officially join Wolves until turning 18 on 1st July.
Sergio Ramos is a defender emphatically at the other end of his career. The World Cup champion – who is more than two decades older than Lima – confirmed that he had left Sevilla for a second time ahead of a potential move to MLS.