Liverpool will somehow multiply their investment on Ben Davies despite him never playing for them. Man City dominate this summer transfer XI.
The following players have all been sold for fees by top-flight English clubs this summer, having never played a single Premier League game for the team in question.
GOALKEEPER: Gavin Bazunu (Man City to Southampton, £12m)
Jay Lynch must have high hopes for his move to Fleetwood this summer. The former Manchester United academy product manned the net for Rochdale this past season, following in the footsteps of loanees Robert Sanchez and Gavin Bazunu. Considering the subsequent success enjoyed by both his most recent predecessors, that is a positive omen. Sanchez parlayed his League One gap year into a compelling argument for a Brighton opportunity, while Bazunu used it to earn a more favourable move to Portsmouth, where he was recently named Players’ Player and Player of the Season. The Irishman will take up permanent residence on the south coast as Southampton seek more clarity and stability between the sticks. Fraser Forster played 19 Premier League games in 2021/22, with Alex McCarthy and Willy Caballero sharing the rest. Bazunu has already impressed in pre-season and the spot is his to lose.
Man City must be pleased to have turned an initial £420,000 investment in a Shamrock Rovers teenager into an eight-figure net-spend booster. Bazunu never made as much as a bench at the Etihad but established himself as an Ireland international and busied himself saving Cristiano Ronaldo penalties long before his parent club’s radar managed to pick him up.
CENTRE-HALF: Ko Itakura (Man City to Borussia Monchengladbach, £4.3m)
The Premier League champions are particularly proficient at that kind of low-level upscaling: signing players for relatively low fees, immediately sending them elsewhere and eventually moving them on at a profit, with their degree of input generally rather minimal. Those treacherous FFP waters have been navigated with calm by Man City for years through this method as the club’s mere presence on a player’s CV significantly boosts their value. Ko Itakura is one such case, purchased for £1m in January 2019, shipped to Groningen for two-and-a-half years, moved on to Schalke for another season and then sold to Borussia Monchengladbach for more than £4m this summer, without ever coming even vaguely close to the Man City first team.
CENTRE-HALF: Ben Davies (Liverpool to Rangers,…
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