Any summer signings excited to play for their new clubs might heed the warning of those bought in the last year – not all by Chelsea – who are yet to debut.
These are the most expensive Premier League players yet to play for the clubs who might have forgotten they signed them before this summer’s transfer window.
Lewis Dobbin (£10m, Aston Villa)
Everton at least tried to make their part of a complete PSR-take look believable by playing Tim Iroegbunam 21 times across last season.
Unai Emery was too busy juggling and ultimately dropping Premier League ambitions, Champions League commitments and cup runs to mess around.
Dobbin was sent on loan to West Brom soon after walking through the door. Villa did keep tabs to the extent that they sensed his playing opportunities were limited, recalling the winger and sending a taxi to take him straight to Norwich instead in January.
It went well enough for the Canaries to consider bringing him back under new management. Villa would probably prefer another back-scratching sale arrangement as they stare blankly at their accounts and wonder whether those weeks of Marcus Rashford were really worth it.
Samuel Iling-Junior (£11.8m, Aston Villa)
Another summer 2024 signing, Chelsea academy alumnus Iling-Junior was the more expensive part of a double deal alongside fellow Juventus midfielder Enzo Barrenechea, in what both clubs involved were weirdly keen to stress was a separate transaction to Douglas Luiz’s move to Turin.
Both were sent out on loan by Villa, with Barrenechea staying on the continent at Valencia while Iling-Junior was treated first to a Champions League-scoring trip to Bologna, then a spell with Middlesbrough.
If that hinted that he might be further along the pathway to the Villa first team, then Iling-Junior confirming that Emery “has always had conversations with me” and “has kept track of my loans” further suggests there might be a place for him in next season’s squad.
Once he returns from the U21 Euros with England, the aim will be to “definitely get back into Villa and make an impact”. Probably as cover at left-back but you’ve got to start somewhere.
Eli Junior Kroupi (£12m, Bournemouth)
“Ligue 1 is a very big league with very good players, and leaving this league hurts a bit,” said Junior Kroupi after firing boyhood club Lorient to promotion and an immediate return to France’s top flight.
“But I’m not going to deny myself the chance to play in the Premier League,” he added, with the opportunity to link up with Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth too tempting to turn down.
Kroupi will swap clubs in the Bill Foley portfolio after the Cherries arranged his arrival in January, allowing him to remain at Lorient for the rest of a crucial campaign.
The teenager stayed to finish as Ligue 2 top scorer for the champions, with Evanilson next in his sights.
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Aaron Anselmino (£15.7m, Chelsea)
South American, of course. No longer a teenager but certainly was when he signed in August 2024. Yep, seven-year contract. But weirdly a defender instead of a wide forward, which must be some sort of clerical error.
Having been with Boca Juniors from the age of 12, it was deemed that a few more months of seasoning in familiar climes would do Anselmino the world of good.
A season-long loan in Argentina was cut short when Chelsea recalled him in January, ostensibly to provide defensive cover and commence the acclimatisation process in west London, but also actually almost definitely to free up an overseas loan place the Blues could use on another stockpiled talent.
There has been a disruptive hamstring injury but Anselmino has been named as an unused first-team substitute six times in three different competitions while he awaits his debut, which is some record.
Ibrahim Osman (£16m, Brighton)
Perhaps things would have turned out differently had he joined West Ham, but Osman can hardly be blamed for taking a well-defined course through the Right to Dream Academy and Nordsjaelland, leading directly to Brighton.
That is the exact direction of travel Simon Adingra took to establish himself as a trusted Seagulls regular and the forlorn hope is for Osman to follow suit.
But his value has plummeted after a sub-optimal Feyenoord loan in which only 13 of his 32 appearances were starts.
The Dutch side did not take up their buy option on 20-year-old Osman, who faces a fight to get a locker in the packed Brighton dressing room before he even contemplates making an impression on Fabian Hurzeler.
Mike Penders (£16.9m, Chelsea)
Chelsea deciding not to sign a new goalkeeper this summer would be more understandable if a) Robert Sanchez wasn’t their nominal first choice, b) Filip Jorgensen wasn’t second in that pecking order, and c) one of the loanees was given a fair shout to stake their claim.
That isn’t to say Gabriel Slonina is worth a try after playing 14 times for League One side Barnsley, but Djordje Petrovic impressed for Strasbourg and Mike Penders also has hands which helped produce some saves for Genk.
The highly-rated young keeper has at least been given a shirt number – the same he donned in Belgium – to hint at distant first-team prospects.
Not everyone’s diet can handle a sudden influx of Carabao so fingers ought to be crossed for him.
Omari Kellyman (£19m, Chelsea)
What a frankly incredible time to be alive it was when the more tribalistic contingent of the Chelsea fanbase was willing to humiliate itself by insisting it was perfectly normal for a club to spend £19m on a player they could have signed for about £600,000 two years before, who had only tucked 148 first-team minutes under his belt in the interim.
It was an absurd overpay coincidentally completed before the late June PSR deadline, and at a time Chelsea and Aston Villa were openly negotiating over a deal for Ian Maatsen which itself felt quite inflated.
“I’m buzzing to have put on the shirt and can’t wait to get started,” Kellyman said at the time, seemingly unaware of his role as a financial pawn in the perennial game of questionable football accounting.
Injuries contributed heavily to his struggles in 2024/25 but he is laughably far from breaking into the Chelsea first team.
Stefanos Tzimas (£22m, Brighton)
It is unknown when Brighton discovered the new centre-forward meta but they have wasted neither time nor money in putting it into action: more than £50m has been committed by the Seagulls this year on deals for similar Greek strikers.
Charalampos Kostoulas will join from Olympiacos in June but Tzimas, also a right-footed 6ft Greek youth international teenage forward on a five-year contract, sealed his move in January.
Nurnberg were able to keep Tzimas for the rest of a season in which he scored 12 times and assisted three goals for the mid-table Bundesliga 2. side, but he will enhance the legion of attacking options at the Amex soon.
“We play the same position, but I think we have different characteristics,” Kostoulas said upon his arrival, adding that Tzimas “is fast, he is strong, he is hanging around the goal every time”. Wait until Danny Welbeck gets a hold of him and turns him into the ultimate all-rounder.
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