Elliot Anderson becomes third most expensive Premier League signing with £116m Man City move but he's only 31st when adjusting historic fees

Elliot Anderson becomes the third-most expensive signing in Premier League history after Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz with his £116m transfer from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City.

But according to new rankings in which historic fees are adjusted to the purchasing power of clubs today, the midfielder is in fact only the 31st-most expensive addition of the Premier League era.

Most comparisons of this type adjust historic prices according to inflation, but the changing price of a pint of milk in the supermarket doesn't reflect the 3,500 per cent increase in Premier League revenues which has transformed the spending capacity of clubs in the transfer market over the last three decades.

In order to more accurately show what past transfers would be worth today factoring those revenue increases, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and professor Jason Laws have created a new index which throws up some fascinating results.

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So, if Anderson drops 28 places in the Laws-Maguire Index, which players occupy the top spots? Isak, the player with the highest transfer fee in Premier League history at £125m, only ranks 14th in the adjusted list, with record scorer Alan Shearer topping the pile.

The £15m fee paid by Newcastle to sign him from Blackburn Rovers sounds modest by today's standards but it was paid in 1996, when football revenues were a fraction of today's. According to the Laws-Maguire Index, it adjusts to an eye-watering £237m.

Two Manchester United signings from the early noughties sit second and third. They paid £33m for Rio Ferdinand and £28m for Juan Sebastian Veron in 2003 and 2001, figures which adjust to £179m and £199m respectively today.

Stan Collymore's £9m move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool in 1995, which adjusts to £179m today, puts him fourth, while Fernando Torres is fifth. His £50m transfer from Liverpool to Chelsea would be worth £177m today, according to the Index.

Dennis Bergkamp, Andy Cole, Andriy Shevchenko, Dwight Yorke and Paul Pogba are next on the list, meaning half of the players in the top 10 are Manchester United signings.

Ferdinand features twice in the top 15, with his £18m transfer from West Ham to Leeds in 2001, two years before his move to Old Trafford, calculated to be worth £140m today.

Along with Isak, the only other current Premier League players in the top 20 are Jack Grealish, Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez.

So, while transfer fees keep increasing, the Laws-Maguire Index suggests spending relative to resources was actually more extravagant in the Premier League's earlier years.

(c) Sky Sports 2026: Elliot Anderson becomes third most expensive Premier League signing with £116m Man City move but he's only 31st when adjusting historic fees