Liverpool have signed 22-year-old midfielder Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in a blockbuster transfer worth an initial £100 million, with £16m in potential add-ons.
While the British transfer record remains the £106.3m that Chelsea paid Benfica up front to sign Enzo Fernández in 2023, Wirtz will become only the fifth player to move to (or within) the Premier League for over £100m.
Though Wirtz’s fee is a long way shy of the world-record transfer — Neymar’s £198m move to Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in 2017 — any deal that reaches nine figures puts huge pressure on the players and, typically speaking, those involved struggle to live up to the expectations created by these astronomical numbers.
Here, we rank the previous four based on how successful they’ve been, but also what the future holds for them.
4. Enzo Fernández
£106.8m, Benfica to Chelsea, 2023
Fernández’s experience at Chelsea has been up and down, despite the fact he’s only been there 2½ years.
Signed under Graham Potter off the back of the 2022 World Cup win with Argentina (hence the inflated fee that saw Benfica make over £100m in profit from their initial £6m investment), he was first given a restrictive role at the base of midfield, tasked with recycling possession and switching play — but not really getting about the pitch or into goal-scoring areas.
His status in the team was then called into question somewhat as Potter’s permanent replacement Mauricio Pochettino (who took over after Frank Lampard’s caretaker spell) really liked Conor Gallagher and focused on his pairing with Moisés Caicedo, which left the Argentine on the outside looking in at times.
But under manager Enzo Maresca, things changed in the 2024-25 season. In fact, at times in 2025, Fernández has looked the Blues’ best bet to score a goal, with his runs into the box and rasping long shots proving very effective. His six league strikes this season made him the club’s third-top goal scorer, and he’s already netted one in the 2025 Club World Cup.
Life is far from easy at Chelsea, what with the constant managerial upheaval (he’s played under four already) and over £1 billion of transfer business in a handful of windows, so this is not necessarily the Argentine’s fault, but the picture of what Fernández should be as a player has never been completely clear. Indeed, the team has never felt like it’s his, so at no point has he really felt like a £106.8m footballer.
At the very least, though, there’s plenty of time for this transfer to pan out. Unlike…
3. Jack Grealish
£100m, Aston Villa to Manchester City, 2021
When you invest £100m into signing a player, you not only expect fireworks, but you expect them to be a big part of the team for a very long time. How to gauge Grealish’s City career, then, given it appears to be over after just four uneven seasons?
The 29-year-old was left out of Pep Guardiola’s Club World Cup squad this summer in an attempt to expedite his departure. It’s hardly the scenario anyone envisioned when City broke the British transfer record to sign him from Aston Villa in 2021.
Given the stakes involved in such an expensive deal, it’s fair to say three of Grealish’s four seasons shade more towards disappointment than success. He never eclipsed the five-goal mark in the Premier League, and played just 716 minutes in 2024-25. However, he’ll always be able to point to the 2022-23 campaign, in which he played a pivotal role in Man City winning a European treble. He was a force to be reckoned with in the Champions League, finishing the tournament with the most shot-creating actions (55) of any player and working hard for the team, while also picking up the Premier League and FA Cup trophies.
This monster season prevents Grealish’s time at City from being regarded as a total failure, but if this really is the end of the England international’s career at the Etihad Stadium, he didn’t really justify the fee in the end. Grealish ranks above Fernández in this list because his impact in 2022-23 is more definable than anything the Argentine has managed so far.
2. Declan Rice
£100m (plus £5m in add-ons), West Ham to Arsenal, 2023
Now we begin to move toward the expected impact of a £100m-plus player. After flitting between the No. 6 deep-lying midfield role and that of a box-to-box No. 8 early on in his Arsenal career, Rice has flourished in the latter position as his aggression and power often lead Arsenal to win control of the middle. He registered at least three tackles and interceptions combined in 15 separate Premier League games last season.
Rice has also become one of the league’s top set-piece takers, perfecting the art of the in-swinging corner to great effect, then added direct free-kick goals to his game on that famous night against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals.
His natural fitness levels are off the charts: He has started 32 or more league games in each of the past seven seasons, frequently played entire European campaigns alongside them, and has reached two European Championship finals as a key player for his country in that time too.
A durable, physically imposing, goal scoring, box-to-box midfielder with a penchant taking control of big games? That’s someone you can build around for years to come.
1. Moisés Caicedo
£100m (plus £15m in add-ons), Brighton & Hove Albion to Chelsea, 2023
How often do you find two clubs willing to pay over £100m to sign a player? So much so that they end up actually lodging monster bids and going head-to-head?
It was a remarkable situation for Caicedo to find himself in: Liverpool agreed to a total of £111m, then Chelsea went to £115m, which was structured as £100m up front and £15m in potential add-ons. It was a saga that lasted most of the summer, wrecked his preseason and piled pressure on the Ecuador midfielder’s debut for the Blues — which saw him give away a penalty in a frankly terrible cameo during a 3-1 loss to West Ham United.
That shocking start is a distant memory, as Caicedo soon found his feet and for the past 18 months or so, he’s played exceptional football to a ridiculously consistent level, showcasing a remarkable array of skills.
Not only is Caicedo one of the most prolific tacklers and interceptors (third-most in the Premier League last season), he’s also an underrated progressive passer (he ranks ninth for progressive passes), a good ball carrier and is tactically smart enough to invert from right back if his team needs him to. He’s probably the second-best and most important player at Chelsea, behind only Cole Palmer.
Chelsea have already enjoyed two excellent seasons from the 23-year-old and have plenty more to look forward to. Signing young players for huge transfer fees carries risk, but the upside is that you can benefit from their very long, successful careers if they work out.
In a very close call between Caicedo and Rice for the No. 1 spot — two players who have fully made their team’s engine rooms their own — the former edges it in part thanks to that longevity.
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