There is still a lot of football to play in 2023/24, but if teams aren’t looking ahead to the summer transfer window and next season they have already fallen behind the competition.
In a world where Premier League Profit & Sustainability rules are increasingly king, bringing money in by offloading players in the market is as important as bringing them in to strengthen on the pitch.
No club, even the wealthiest, can afford a bloated squad.
90min picks one player from each of the established ‘big six’ – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – to sell.
Aaron Ramsdale going to waste on Arsenal’s bench is helping no one, and with the £27m permanent option in David Raya’s loan from Brentford set to be triggered that situation isn’t changing.
The 25-year-old was named in the PFA’s Premier League Team of the Year for 2022/23 but has seen his chance of being England number one at Euro 2024, which was a genuine possibility 12 months ago, go up in smoke because his club status. Arsenal owe it to him to listen to offers and could probably command a fee in excess of the £30m deal they agreed with Sheffield United in 2021.
Chelsea will never recoup anything like their investment in flop midfielders Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez (£223m for the pair) so may as well stick it out given that both are still in the early stages of their respective careers and could yet come good over time.
Marc Cucurella should never have been signed in the first place and getting more of their money back on him stands to be easier than if Mykhailo Mudryk or Wesley Fofana, both even more expensive massive flops, were to be sold in the near future. The Spaniard is a proven upper mid-table defender and should a team with aspirations of finishing in the top half – say Crystal Palace, West Ham, Brentford, or even a return to Brighton – offer anything around £30m, Chelsea should take it.
Cody Gakpo has only been at Liverpool for just over a year, but the Dutchman doesn’t have a defined role and, whichever way you look at it is not a starter in any of the positions he can play. In his primary position up front, the competition from Darwin Nunez, who Liverpool paid more than twice as much for, has ramped up thanks to the Uruguayan’s immense form this season.
The more clinical Diogo Jota is arguably a better back-up ‘number nine’, leaving Gakpo in a bit of limbo. His value is protected by a long contract and if Liverpool can turn a profit on the £37m transfer fee paid, which should be doable given his age and remaining potential, it might be a smart business decision to bring in some cash to jumpstart the second Michael Edwards era.
Who do you look to move on when you’re the best team in the world and everyone seems pretty happy with their situation? The answer is pretty difficult.
Maybe it’s time to finally grant Bernardo Silva his wish and let him go. Despite remaining one of Pep Guardiola’s most important players, the Portuguese has been unsettled off the pitch since 2020 and, at 29 until August, could still command a considerable price tag.
Constantly replenishing, City have a habit of letting key players leave – Raheem Sterling, Joao Cancelo, Gabriel Jesus – and replacing them with younger ones – Jeremy Doku, Josko Gvardiol, Erling Haaland – without seeing a reduction in quality on the pitch.
United made Antony the second most expensive player in their history when an £86m transfer from Ajax was signed off in 2022, with scouts having previously assessed the winger as a £25m player.
The Brazilian started well enough, scoring in each of his first three Premier League appearances and later getting the goal that knocked Barcelona out of the Europa League. But his form had deserted him many months before off-field problems exploded amid domestic assault allegations at the start of this season, so United cutting their losses and reinvesting his contract elsewhere may be the best bet – even if that means most of their investment going up in smoke.
Jadon Sancho is another obvious contender, but if United’s new sporting chiefs decide to start afresh with a manager other than Erik ten Hag, there is every chance he could land a lifeline.
With a contract up in 2025, this summer is Tottenham’s last realistic chance of being able to offload Tanguy Ndombele for any sort of transfer fee, having agreed a club record deal worth up to £64.5m in 2019. The midfielder hasn’t even played for Spurs in more than two years since January 2022.
Galatasaray are unlikely to make use of an option in their loan agreement worth just under £13m given that he’s hardly started for them this season. So it could be a case of accepting even a nominal amount just to remove the burden of another year on the books. At 27, Ndombele’s career still has legs if he can find the right club, but any remaining ties to Spurs will only keep holding him back.
