Record transfer fee for each of the 20 Premier League clubs – Newcastle United to move up 17 places? | OneFootball

I have been looking at the current record transfer fee for each of the 20 Premier League clubs that will fight out the 2025/26 season.

Please forgive me if there are any mistakes.

This isn’t a cut and paste that I have stolen from elsewhere and ‘forgot’ to credit them.

Instead, it is all my own work, so I take all of the credit or blame for the record transfer fee stats below.

Of course, with the way things are going this summer, very likely that one or more of the 20 Premier League clubs will see their record transfer fee overtaken.

When I say record transfer fee, in this lengthy undertaking, I have looked for the record transfer fee that each of the 20 Premier League clubs has RECEIVED, not paid out.

As you go from top to bottom in this table, you may have the odd moment of surprise, when it comes to who have been the very biggest sellers in their largest  individual outgoing transaction.

The 20 Premier League clubs of the 2025/26 season and their biggest ever sale of a player:

£142m – Liverpool – Philippe Countinho to Barcelona in 2018

£115m – Brighton – Moises Caicedo to Chelsea in 2023

£105m – West Ham – Declan Rice to Arsenal in 2023

£100m – Tottenham – Harry Kane to Bayern Munich in 2023

£100m – Aston Villa – Jack Grealish to Manchester City in 2021

£89m – Chelsea – Eden Hazard to Real Madrid in 2019

£82m – Manchester City – Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid in 2024

£80m – Manchester United – Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid in 2009

£75m – Everton – Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United in 2017

£65m – Bournemouth – Dominic Solanke to Tottenham in 2024

£62.5m – Wolves – Matheus Cunha to Manchester United in 2025

£55m – Nottingham Forest – Anthony Elanga to Newcastle United in 2025

£55m – Leeds – Raphinha to Barcelona in 2022

£51m – Crystal Palace – Michael Olise to Bayern Munich in 2024Rec

£50m – Fulham – Aleksandar Mitrovic to Al-Hilal in 2023

£40m – Arsenal – Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool in 2017

£40m – Brentford – Ivan Toney to Al-Ahli in 2024

£35m – Newcastle United – Andy Carroll to Liverpool in 2011

£31m – Burnley – Wilson Odobert to Tottenham in 2024

£30m – Sunderland – Jordan Pickford to Everton in 2017

Conclusions

How many of you would have put us in the relegation bottom three zone (with the Mackems) of this Premier League record transfer fee (received) table?

Pretty stunning really that the Newcastle United £35m record transfer fee received for Andy Carroll from fourteen and a half years ago, still stands today. The Elliot Anderson sale to Forest was also reported to be £35m, although that at the time was inflated as part of the double PSR deal that was done with Forest, as a £20m ‘valued’ Vlachodimos came the other way. I think Elliot Anderson was worth every penny of that £35m, especially with what he has shown at Forest since, fair to say though that back in summer 2024 on what he’d achieved by then, I don’t think any chance that £35m would have been paid by another club in a sole transaction for him at that point.

Regardless, that inflated £35m for Anderson still didn’t beat the £35m Liverpool paid for Andy Carroll in January 2011.

Very ironic that now we have a situation where Newcastle United could very possibly go straight to the top of the table above, record transfer fee that Premier League clubs have received, if the Newcastle United owners did for whatever daft reason, sell Alexander Isak to most likely Liverpool.

I think that this table above also blows a massive hole in the theory put forward by some deluded people, that Mike Ashley was a financially shrewd and clever Premier League club owner and some kind of genius at developing and buying players, to then skilfully sell for unbelievable amounts.

The reality is that Mike Ashley took a club that had been competing towards the top end of the Premier League most seasons, regularly playing in Europe, to one that was facing a third relegation in 13 Premier League seasons kicking off under Ashley, until Eddie Howe and the then new NUFC owners saved the club.

Whilst on the transfer front, the greatest sale Mike Ashley achieved, was with a young player who was already at the club before he arrived.

The chaotic and incompetent running of Mike Ashley for solely his financial gain, no building blocks put in place for the foundations of a future Newcastle United, summed up by the fact that actually in the 15 seasons that NUFC kicked off under his ownership, we saw actually a higher record transfer fee paid out, than received.

Having undermined and misled Rafa Benitez, leaving him to rely on bargain buys after instant promotion back to the Premier League, the moment the Spaniard was gone, Mike Ashley then bought Joelinton for £40m. We then hilariously had Steve Bruce claiming that he was in charge of transfers and it had been his decision to buy the Brazilian, despite Joelinton arriving only a few days after Bruce himself had arrived.

We will no doubt never find out exactly why Mike Ashley suddenly was desperate to more than double the previous Newcastle United transfer record (under £20m for Miguel Almiron just three and a half months before Ashley forced Rafa out) but he (Ashley) for some bizarre reason had been determined to impose the £40m Joelinton signing on Benitez in the final months of his time as manager.

The bottom line is that after starving of funds a talented manager with a track record of success, Mike Ashley then handed a £40m Joelinton to a clueless Steve Bruce, who didn’t have a clue what to do with him. Persisting for so long as a centre-forward, despite Joelinton having had a breakthrough season playing on the left of a front three for Hoffenheim.

Steve Bruce actually ended up regularly leaving record signing Joelinton out of his team, until Eddie Howe came along and saved Joelinton and the rest of us.

We all know now how good Joelinton is, but the combined genius of Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce, means that in reality the club’s record £40m signing would have been lucky to generate £10m if they’d sold him in summer 2021. Makes you wonder doesn’t it, what Joelinton’s career would have been if he’d left Newcastle then, plus of course how Eddie Howe and NUFC would have got on without him…

The fact that Newcastle United still haven’t broken that 2011 record transfer fee sale figure, is pretty much all still down to Mike Ashley even now.

Ashley left a broken club on and off the pitch, there were no players that Eddie Howe and the new Newcastle United owners inherited that could have been sold for more than £35m. Indeed, any inherited players of a decent quality all had to be kept anyway just to avoid relegation and steady the ship.

Whilst the players who have arrived for big money under Eddie Howe and the current Newcastle United owners have all been essential in the success enjoyed these past few years, selling any of these would have just meant them having to be instantly replaced and it would have weakened the team, with such a small group of real quality players the team has largely picked itself.

As for the Academy, Mike Ashley refused to allow any kind of proper investment in that either. It was just a fluke that the likes of Carroll, the Longstaffs, Anderson and Miley managed to come through and play first team football. As for buying the best young talent to go into the Academy or out on loan initially, that didn’t happen under Ashley either, there were no Mintehs bought for £7m then valued at and sold for £33m a year later.

That record £35m record transfer fee received in 2011 for Andy Carroll, has now been beaten at least eight times already when it comes to transfer fees paid out by NUFC, as well as Joelinton you have Isak (£63m), Livramento (£38m), Tonali (£55m), Elanga (£55m), Bruno (£41m), Gordon (£45m) and Barnes (£40m). Whilst I think Botman almost certainly cost more than £35m as well, once future add-ons etc are included.

I think it is only a matter of time that the 2011 record transfer fee received by Newcastle United is beaten, maybe this window even, though NOT Alexander Isak!

Meanwhile though, I have every confidence that that £35m record incoming fee will continue to be exceeded on a regular basis in terms of transfer fees paid out. For starters, Anthony Elanga set to be followed very shortly by at least one or two others in the days and weeks to come.