Liverpool’s capture of Alexander Isak from Newcastle United marks the culmination of one of the highest profile transfers ever between Premier League clubs. But how does it compare?
Here, Ben Bloom runs down some of the biggest deals involving top-flight clubs.
Alexander Isak (Newcastle to Liverpool, August 2025)
One of the most drawn-out transfer sagas in recent years has finally concluded with the Swedish striker moving to reigning Premier League champions Liverpool for a reported fee of £125million.
In three seasons at Newcastle, Isak scored 54 Premier League goals in 86 appearances, as well as finding the net in last season’s victorious EFL Cup final against the club he has now joined.
With Liverpool also spending a large sum to bring in French striker Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt, it remains to be seen who Arne Slot prefers as first choice to lead the line and how he will keep both frontmen happy.
Eberechi Eze (Crystal Palace to Arsenal, Aug 2025)
A dream return to Eze’s childhood club, but one that had wider repercussions. With Crystal Palace seemingly resigned to parting with their star man, it looked as close to certain that he was on the way to Tottenham Hotspur.
However, a last-minute intervention from Arsenal snatched their former academy player from under their local rival’s noses, causing Spurs to lose out on a second high-profile signing of the summer after failing to lure Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest. They did, however, quickly move to sign Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig.
Eze supported Arsenal growing up and will now attempt to help the club make the step up from perennial Premier League bridesmaids to champions.
Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea, Jan 2011)
Torres had developed a reputation as one of the Premier League’s most lethal marksmen with 65 goals in 102 games for Liverpool when Chelsea decided to part with a reported £50m to bring him to London on the final day of the January 2011 transfer window.
It was a huge amount of money for the time and it proved not to be well spent. The Spaniard scored just once in 18 appearances for his new club in the remainder of 2010/11 season and would end his Chelsea career with just 20 Premier League goals in 110 matches.
He did, though, score the stoppage-time aggregate winner against Barcelona in the semi-final of the 2011/12 UEFA Champions League that they would go on to claim.
Declan Rice (West Ham to Arsenal, July 2023)
Over the course of a decade climbing from the youth ranks to club captaincy, Rice secured legendary status at West Ham United, guiding the club to UEFA Conference League glory and three times claiming the club’s Player of the Year award.
However, citing an “ambition to play at the very highest level of the game”, he moved across London to Arsenal in a reported £100 million deal that saw him become the joint-most expensive British player ever alongside Jack Grealish.
In two campaigns since, he has fast become a crucial part of Arsenal’s team and was named the club’s Player of the Season in 2024/25.
Moises Caicedo (Brighton to Chelsea, Aug 2023)
Few English football fans were aware of Caicedo when the Ecuadorian midfielder left his home country and joined Brighton & Hove Albion midway through the 2020/21 season.
He soon went on loan to Belgium but enjoyed a breakthrough start to the 2022/23 campaign and reportedly failed in an attempt to force through a mid-season move to Arsenal.
Liverpool allegedly agreed a fee with him that summer, but Chelsea pipped them to it with an offer that could reportedly reach £115m. He was named Chelsea’s Player of the Season last year.
Ashley Cole (Arsenal to Chelsea, Aug 2006)
A year before he eventually moved across London, Cole – and Chelsea – were fined by the Premier League for a "tapping-up" meeting in the summer of 2005.
Cole subsequently signed a one-year contract extension at Arsenal, but eventually made the move the following summer after protracted negotiations, with William Gallas going the other way.
Cole would go on to make 229 Premier League appearances for Chelsea, cementing his status as one of England’s greatest ever left-backs, and winning multiple domestic and European trophies.
Virgil van Dijk (Southampton to Liverpool, Jan 2018)
Having begun his career in his native Netherlands and then played for Celtic in Scotland, Van Dijk landed in the Premier League with Southampton, for whom he quickly impressed, winning the club’s Player of the Season award in his first year.
The Dutchman was heavily linked with a move to Liverpool in the summer of 2017, but played on for Southampton until December, when it was confirmed that Liverpool had got their man for a fee in the region of £75m, making him the most expensive defender in world football at the time.
Now club captain, Van Dijk has been an integral part of Liverpool's success since, guiding the Reds to two Premier League titles as a mainstay of the defence.
Robin van Persie (Arsenal to Man Utd, Aug 2012)
Another transfer that left supporters livid, Arsenal captain Van Persie’s decision to depart for rivals Man Utd did not go down at all well at his former club.
The Dutchman had spent eight years in north London, scoring 30 goals to win the Premier League Golden Boot in his final campaign.
He would only remain at Old Trafford for three seasons, but retained his Golden Boot award to help the club win the Premier League at the first time of asking. He ended his Man Utd career with 48 league goals in 86 appearances.
N’Golo Kante (Leicester to Chelsea, July 2016)
The little-known Frenchman had spent only one season in English football before his move to Chelsea, but what a season it was.
Kante was one of the standout players in an unforgettable Leicester City title win, making more tackles and interceptions than any other player.
It earned him a move to Chelsea, where he was named the Premier League’s Player of the Season in his opening campaign, helping his new club to the title in the process. Over seven seasons, he played 190 Premier League matches and became known as one of the great defensive midfielders.
Romelu Lukaku (Everton to Man Utd, July 2017)
After failing to make the grade at Chelsea, Lukaku made his name over four seasons (one on loan and three as a permanent player) at Everton, during which he scored 68 goals in 141 Premier League appearances.
A place in the PFA Team of the Year earned him a move to Man Utd, who paid a reported £75m, a day after Wayne Rooney had gone the other way from Old Trafford back to his childhood club, Everton.
The switch was not wholly unsuccessful, given he scored 28 league goals for Man Utd, but he was unable to claim a permanent starting spot during the two seasons he spent at the club before departing for Inter.
Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal to Man City, July 2009)
Who can forget the knee slide? Just two months after leaving Arsenal for Manchester City, the Togo striker came up against his former club in a feisty Premier League game.
Having scored his fourth goal in his fourth game for City, Adebayor sprinted the full length of the pitch to celebrate on his knees in front of the travelling Arsenal fans, who were understandably furious.
Despite scoring 14 Premier League goals in his first season at City, he quickly fell down the pecking order thereafter and barely featured for the club again, soon moving on loan to Real Madrid and Spurs before leaving permanently.
Wayne Rooney (Everton to Man Utd, Aug 2004)
Rooney was still only 18 when he left Everton for Man Utd, but the teenager was already on the path to stardom.
His two seasons in the Everton first team had marked himself out as a generational talent, and it was no surprise when he departed for a reported £20m in what was then the highest fee paid for a player aged under 20.
Over 13 years at United, he scored 183 Premier League goals – only Harry Kane (Spurs) and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) have more for one club. He also won the title five times.
Raheem Sterling (Liverpool to Man City, July 2015)
Having won the Golden Boy award in 2014, Sterling looked destined for greatness at Liverpool only for a protracted contract dispute to overshadow the second half of what would prove to be his final season at the club.
Sterling eventually left for Man City, who reportedly paid a then English record £44m. It took a while for him to truly make his mark at the Etihad Stadium, but he flourished under Pep Guardiola, scoring 91 goals in 225 Premier League appearances for the club, lifting the title four times.
Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal to Man Utd, Jan 2018)
It is not often that a transfer takes place in a pure player-for-player swap deal where no money exchanges hands, but that is precisely what happened when Sanchez left Arsenal for Man Utd and Henrikh Mkhitaryan went the opposite way.
Sanchez had achieved notable success over three-and-a-half years in north London, while Mkhitaryan had not made much of an impact during an 18-month stint at Old Trafford.
The swap did little for either club. Hopes were high for Sanchez – who was memorably unveiled with a video of him playing the piano at Old Trafford – but the Chilean failed to replicate his best for the Red Devils, scoring a mere three times in 32 Premier League appearances.
Mkhitaryan fared little better and both ended up leaving on free transfers.
Rio Ferdinand (Leeds to Man Utd, July 2002)
Just 20 months after shelling out a British record fee for Ferdinand, Leeds United then received another record amount – reported to be just shy of £30m – to sell the centre-back to Manchester United.
The move was reportedly dictated by Leeds’ financial situation, although Ferdinand later revealed he sat in the chairman’s office for almost six hours to force the deal through.
Ferdinand would become a club legend at Old Trafford, serving as captain, playing close to 500 matches in all competitions, and winning six Premier League titles.
Sol Campbell (Spurs to Arsenal, July 2001)
In a crowded field, few transfers have caused as much anger and upset as Campbell’s move from Spurs to arch-rivals Arsenal in the summer of 2001.
With his contract expired at White Hart Lane, the Spurs captain’s switch to Arsene Wenger’s side came as an enormous shock, with no inkling that it was about to take place. Yet it paid off for the centre-back, who won two Premier League titles and three FA Cups in the five seasons he spent at Highbury.
The legacy of the move remains to this day, with Spurs fans’ fury as vehement as it was more than two decades ago.
Frank Lampard (West Ham to Chelsea, June 2001)
Lampard had followed in the footsteps of his father, Frank senior, by joining West Ham’s youth team and working his way through to the first team. But he always wanted to escape his dad's shadow.
Chelsea provided that opportunity when they signed him just before his 23rd birthday and they reaped the rewards in abundance.
During a superlative Chelsea career, Lampard reached double figures in 10 successive seasons and made 429 Premier League appearances, winning three league titles whilst emerging as one of the Premier League’s greatest players ever.
Andrew Cole (Newcastle to Man Utd, Jan 1995)
Cole took the Premier League by storm in his first season in the competition, claiming the Golden Boot with 34 goals for Newcastle.
Yet six months into the following campaign, Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan stood on the steps outside St James’ Park explaining why he had suddenly been sold to Man Utd in a transfer that stunned English football.
He helped his new club win the Premier League in his first season and was part of a hugely successful Man Utd side that were crowned English champions in five of the eight years he spent there. Cole finished with 93 goals in 195 Premier League matches during his time at Old Trafford.