Bournemouth and Brentford Laugh All the Way to the Bank While Newcastle Count the Cost of Transfer Chaos

The summer of 2025 was supposed to expose Bournemouth and Brentford as frauds. Lose your best players, the theory went, and you collapse. Yet here we are, with both clubs grinning like Cheshire cats while Newcastle United sits nursing a hangover from what can only be described as a transfer window calamity.

Newcastle's involvement in two of the season's eight smartest sales tells you everything you need to know about their summer recruitment strategy: panic-stricken, poorly-timed, and ultimately disastrous.

Yoane Wissa: The £55m Saga That Keeps on Giving

The Wissa transfer was a masterclass in how not to conduct transfer business. When Alexander Isak signalled his desire to depart, Newcastle shifted gears frantically. Rather than securing a replacement early, they let negotiations drag into August—a fatal error that handed Brentford all the leverage they needed.

Despite having promised Wissa a summer exit, Brentford turned the screw. With Thomas Frank, Christian Norgaard, and Bryan Mbeumo already departed, the Gtech Community Stadium outfit demanded closer to £60m for their Congolese forward. His valuation had sat at roughly £25m just months earlier. Brentford got exactly what they wanted: substantially more than anticipated.

For Newcastle, the nightmare was only beginning. Wissa suffered a serious knee injury on international duty and never recovered his sharpness. Across 26 appearances in black and white, he managed just three goals. A £55m outlay for a 29-year-old with a dreadful scoring return represents a damning indictment of Newcastle's summer—and a triumph for Brentford's Moneyball approach.

James McAtee: City's Golden Touch Strikes Again

Manchester City demonstrated once more why they're the transfer market's finest operators. McAtee joined Nottingham Forest for £30m and promptly became one of the season's biggest disappointments, scoring a solitary goal across 14 Premier League appearances, starting just twice.

He is not the next Phil Foden or Cole Palmer. For City, though, it was another masterpiece of financial engineering.

Armando Broja: Chelsea's Knack for Shifting Deadwood

Chelsea's ability to extract substantial fees for mediocre talent remains unmatched. Broja's £20m move to Burnley exemplifies this perfectly. The Albanian forward looks increasingly out of place at Premier League level, destined to become another of those frustrating players—too accomplished for the Championship, yet not quite good enough for the top flight.

Huijsen and Zabarnyi: Bournemouth's Remarkable Sleight of Hand

Bournemouth's £104.3m haul from selling Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid (£50m) and Illia Zabarnyi to Paris Saint-Germain (£54.3m) could have spelled disaster. Instead, it's been a triumph of recruitment and squad management.

The Cherries lost the bulk of their defensive spine yet somehow improved. Adrien Truffert proved an astute signing, Marcos Senesi and James Hill stepped up magnificently, and Djordje Petrovic delivered an exceptional campaign between the sticks, playing every Premier League minute.

Both Huijsen and Zabarnyi have struggled to replicate their Bournemouth form at their new clubs, yet that's irrelevant. What matters is Bournemouth received £100m for two crucial players and didn't just maintain their level—they elevated it. They finished just one point better than 2024/25 yet went on an 18-match unbeaten run, qualifying for European football for the first time in their history. Andoni Iraola's departure makes you wonder what he was thinking.

Anthony Elanga: Another Newcastle Miscalculation

Newcastle's summer window screams one word: panic. After one decent season at Nottingham Forest, Elanga arrived at St James' Park and immediately looked like a £550,000 player rather than a £55m one. The winger lacked confidence and failed to make any meaningful contribution, handing Forest another feather in their cap for a brilliantly executed sale.

Fabio Silva: The Wolves Escape Artist

Wolves did remarkably well to recoup nearly £20m for Silva, a player who cost them £35m in 2020. His spell at Borussia Dortmund—three goals in 39 appearances—vindicated their decision to move him on. Silva somehow parlayed this into a £25m transfer to Atlético Madrid in August.

Youssef Chermiti: Everton's Rare Win

Everton's £8m sale of Chermiti to Rangers represents decent business for a Premier League club offloading a player they'd paid £15m to acquire. For Rangers, it's their most expensive modern signing, surpassed only by Tore André Flo in their entire history when add-ons are factored in.

The Portuguese forward is a curious enigma—magnificent against Rangers' biggest rivals, scoring two braces against Celtic and a hat-trick against Hearts, yet ordinary against lesser opposition. In fact, 73% of his Scottish Premiership goals came against the Old Firm. He could only manage genuine impact in the biggest fixtures, which tells you something about his consistency at this level.

Everton, though, got respectable money for a player who was never going to cut it at Goodison Park.