One Liverpool player has suffered a demotion while signings Chelsea and Manchester City made for a combined £104m have been stripped of their shirt numbers.
Julio Enciso (demoted from Brighton’s No. 10)
It seemed as though Enciso was primed for another eye-catching loan after he impressed as a slightly oversized fish in the Ipswich pond last season. But a knee injury has forced Brighton to navigate the spanner in those works.
There is interest from a Roma side who have already taken Evan Ferguson off the Seagulls’ trawler but a valuation of around £17.5m had already complicated Enciso’s potential exit.
The only certainty is that he is not part of Fabian Hurzeler’s plans. The No. 10 shirt has been reassigned to Georginio Rutter, whose 14 has been bestowed upon new signing Tom Watson. Enciso has fallen all the way down to Ansu Fati’s old No. 31.
Oliver Sonne (demoted from Burnley’s No. 2)
The prodigal Sonne donned the No. 2 shirt for Burnley on five occasions last season, stretching across two competitions and 290 minutes after joining from Silkeborg in January.
With that lasting impression made on Scott Parker, it must have come as a shock when Kyle Walker strolled in to selfishly take a squad number he made his own with Spurs, Manchester City and England. Peru international Sonne will proudly wear the 2 instead for Burnley’s run to the Carabao Cup third round.
Shurandy Sambo (demoted from Burnley’s No. 3)
It is all change at Turf Moor as Sambo’s argument that his 98 minutes in 2024/25 outweighed that of Quilindschy Hartman’s £7.7m arrival from Feyenoord in terms of importance proved entirely unsuccessful.
Parker had initially been omitted from the club’s squad list in the Championship before being chucked back on and used remarkably sparingly when they couldn’t find a loan suitor, so it might not have come as too much of a surprise.
The mission to ship the Dutch full-back out has been similarly difficult this summer, although the Clarets have had slightly bigger fish to fry in assembling a squad worthy of the top flight.
That will not involve Sambo, who has slid down the pecking order to inherit the No. 43 despite Lou Bega’s protestations that he should be given the No. 5.
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Manuel Benson (demoted from Burnley’s No. 10)
Vincent Kompany could not quite find space for Benson in his Premier League survival blueprint after a sensational Championship season for the forward, so it is unlikely Parker will even bother trying after his peripheral role in another promotion campaign due to injury.
The marginalisation of Benson’s role has been reflected in his loss of the No. 10 shirt to Marcus Edwards and adoption of the far less illustrious No. 27 in its place.
Mykhaylo Mudryk (stripped of Chelsea’s No. 10)
“I have not spoken to Misha yet, but I will when the time is right,” said Cole Palmer upon the announcement he would be getting an upgrade from No. 20 to No. 10 at Chelsea.
“It is not really my place to get involved with him at the minute. I will speak to him,” the England international added. It’s not like Mudryk has any bigger issues to contemplate; the bloke might not even need a squad number for another four years.
Calvin Ramsay (demoted from Liverpool’s No. 22)
This should have been the summer when the plan was put into action. As Ramsay himself said when he joined as Aberdeen’s record sale in summer 2022: “Obviously, I’m a right-back, pretty attacking – I like to attack. I’m OK defensively as well, but my main attribute is attacking.”
The Scotsman was crowned as Trent Alexander-Arnold’s natural heir upon his arrival but persistent injury problems have meant that Ramsay could not be further from the picture now the vacancy has opened up.
It feels increasingly likely that when the final two years on his contract at Anfield are served, his eternal legacy will be that of the player whose mid-June 2022 signing Liverpool accompanied by briefing friendly journalists that there would be no more additions that summer.
In this, their most lavish and extravagant transfer window ever, the best Ramsay can hope for is a fifth loan elsewhere after handing his No. 22 shirt to new signing Hugo Ekitike and taking the Cruyff-turning 47 from the departing Nat Phillips.
Kalvin Phillips (stripped of Manchester City’s No. 4)
The hint was very much taken through some unnecessarily public criticism from his manager and a pair of disastrous loans, the first of which saw him get sent off and swear at the fans with the second summed up by failing to hold down a regular place at a relegated side.
But if Phillips was able to ignore that particular prose scribbled on the wall, the award of his shirt number and ultimately midfield squad role to Tijani Reijnders will be difficult to overlook.
Manchester City have not even deemed it worth bothering assigning Phillips a new number; all parties involved – especially Gareth Southgate – are presumably hoping everyone collectively and subconsciously agrees to just ignore the last three years left on his deal.
