Last summer was not a good time to be an English footballer.
The England national team suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in its history, crashing out of Euro 2016 at the hands of Iceland, and back home, English players were getting an exceptionally raw deal in the transfer market.
Indeed, summer 2016 saw all 20 Premier League clubs spend just £135million on English players, £47million of which was commanded by John Stones alone, the lowest amount spent and the lowest percentage of the Premier League’s total transfer outlay in three years.
Accordingly, the number of permanent transfers involving Premier League clubs and English players plummeted to just 49 – almost half the total the summer previous – and while only eight Englishmen were brought to the Premier League from other divisions, over three times as many exited the top flight.
Perhaps most damningly, those who managed to source employment that kept them in the Premier League, including those from the three clubs that were relegated the season previous, moved down the league table, on average, by 7.1 places. By the end of last season, that figure had dropped further to 7.6 places (excluding those relegated) lower than if they’d stayed at their previous clubs.
Excluding free transfers, Premier League clubs spent on average £6.1million per England cap last summer, highlighting perhaps the biggest cause of the refrain from signing English players during that transfer window – the frankly unjustifiable escalation of price-tags.
Of course, price-tags in general have continually soared over the last few years, but the average jumped up from just £1.4million in summer 2015, a massive £4.5million difference – or a 336% increase.
And while the world-record transfer fee has been broken just three times since 2009, the three biggest fees ever paid for English players have been tabled in the last three summers – all by Manchester City, whose overzealous deals for young Englishmen yet to truly prove themselves, namely Stones and Raheem Sterling, created a level of inflation that reverberated throughout the division.
Even the likes of Jordon Ibe, who has never been called up to the senior England team, and Ryan Mason, who had just two full top-flight campaigns under his belt, commanded almost £30million combined upon signing for two clubs who finished the campaign previous in the bottom half, Bournemouth and Hull respectively.
If we apply the £6.1million per cap rate to the German national team, the current world champions, for example, Antonio Rudiger would have set Chelsea back £103.7million this summer.
The Blues spent less than a third of that to acquire his services from Roma. Clearly, that climax reached last summer was quite simply unsustainable; less and less deals involving English players, yet their price-tags continually escalating for no reason other than their nationality.
Fortunately for the Premier League’s English contingent, however, the 2017 summer transfer window thus far makes for much more pleasant reading. Almost as many deals involving English players have taken place and almost as many English players have arrived in the Premier League as last summer, with over a month of the transfer window still to go, whilst the amount spent has already eclipsed 2016 and the percentage of total Premier League spend has almost increased to the level it was three years ago.
Most promising, however, is the direction English players are now moving in. Whilst a negative change in league position remains slightly worrying, the difference is now just -1.3 and five players have moved up the table – just three less than the number that have moved down.
Curiously, the real difference has been the number of clubs prepared to take punts on players that were involved in last season’s relegation battle. Last summer, just two players were acquired from clubs that finished in the bottom five with Andros Townsend and Nathan Redmond swapping Newcastle for Crystal Palace and Norwich for Southampton respectively.
During the current transfer window, on the other hand, Jordan Pickford, Jermain Defoe, Michael Keane, Josh Tymon and Harry Maguire have all moved up the table already. There’s still a likelihood someone will pinch Ben Gibson from Middlesbrough too, while Troy Deeney leaving Watford for a higher calling has been speculated sporadically throughout the window.
Encouragingly, the bottom five – including last season’s three promoted sides from the Championship – have all looked to replace the English talent lost from that area of the table by bringing more into the Premier League. Watford have snapped up Will Hughes from Derby, Newcastle have signed Norwich’s Jacob Murphy and Burnley have sealed Charlie Taylor’s services from Leeds, while Huddersfield have brought Tom Ince and Scott Malone with them from the Championship.
If there’s one concern from summers previous, however, it’s the disparity of the English market. Whilst those at the lower end of the table have opened their doors to English talent and Everton have brought in three players who’ve all been called up to England squads before – Keane, Pickford and Wayne Rooney – the top six remains the glass ceiling.
So far, the only English players signed by top six clubs were from other top six teams – Dominic Solanke joining Liverpool and Kyle Walker completing a blockbuster move to the Etihad Stadium. Even last summer, quite possibly the least active of all time for English players, Rob Holding made the step up from League One to Arsenal and Stones crossed the top six divide from Everton to City.
There are still a few players who could move into the top six before the summer window draws to a close. Ross Barkley’s contract saga at Everton is seemingly gearing for a last-minute departure and it could well be a top six club who eventually snaps him up, whereas Southampton defender Ryan Bertrand is never too far away from being linked with the Premier League’s biggest hitters.
In those suggestions, however, there is an underlying concern; neither are necessarily first choices in their positions for England, in fact Barkley’s not kicked a ball for the Three Lions since May last year, so theoretically, there are more talented English players for those roles already out there and most likely in the top six. Regardless, both could easily fetch in excess of £30million each – something that won’t reduce the near-constant swell of English price-tags.
Currently, however, the transfer window is giving cause for English players to be more optimistic. Five have already arrived in the Premier League, five have already moved up the table and barring one outrageous deal for Walker and a questionable sum for Pickford, the rest of the fees have been largely within the realms of the market norms. In fact, only five fees out of twelve have eclipsed the £10million mark.
This could well be the summer in which the fortunes of English players in the transfer market begins to turn around. But we still need more mobility throughout the division that sees English players move into the top six, and the fees involved to be closer to realistic than ridiculous.