Tchouameni to Arsenal among five 2023 Premier League transfers for big-money 2022 signings

All of these players linked with Premier League moves were among the biggest 20 signings in the summer of 2022 and could already be on their way out, with their debut seasons ranging from not bad to downright dreadful.

Aurelien Tchouameni (Monaco to Real Madrid – £68.3m)
Cheers for the hits, Aurelien. We won’t lie, the Real Madrid star has been the source of superb traffic for Football365 this summer, and finding what we initially assumed was utter bullsh*t linking the France midfielder with a move away from the Bernabeu has become a daily task for the purveyors of transfer fodder.

But surely there can’t be quite so much smoke (and money, thanks again) without fire. Jude Bellingham’s move from Borussia Dortmund was the match, sparking rumours which increased as Madrid agreed extensions with Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Dani Ceballos, leaving Carlo Ancelotti with frankly far too many central midfielders, with Eduardo Camavinga and Federico Valverde sure to stay.

Valverde’s name was also bandied around for a bit, but while that bullsh*t was too far-fetched for the rumour-hungry fiends, Tchouameni to Arsenal, Manchester United or Newcastle provided just enough stank to get transfer noses twitching without their guff-alarms sounding before garnering those sweet, sweet clicks.

And we like to imagine Florentino Perez combing through the F365 news pages featuring significant updates on a transfer he has neither sanctioned nor knows anything about, only to wonder whether perhaps he should sell Tchouameni to Arsenal.

Marc Cucurella (Brighton to Chelsea – £62m)
If you’ve seen any clips of Marc Cucurella doing Chelsea promos for social media or in interviews, like the one where he hails the importance of Jorginho to Chelsea as he’s told the midfielder’s left to join Arsenal, you will likely be on board with our assessment that he appears to be a lovely man that’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

On the pitch it looked as though he arrived at Chelsea with his picnic basket entirely empty, with none of what prompted the Blues to pay SIXTY-TWO MILLION POUNDS evident in his performances.

Mauricio Pochettino has reportedly blocked Ian Maatsen from leaving after his fine spell at Burnley last season, meaning he has him, Ben Chilwell and Lewis Hall as frankly superior options.

Raphinha (Leeds to Barcelona – £49m)
It’s fair to say Raphinha loves Barcelona a helluva lot more than they love him. The winger fell just short of affecting a Spanish accent and putting on a Mateu Alemany disguise in his bid to negotiate his transfer to the Catalans from Leeds last summer.

Since then he’s played some football, and reasonably well – he got ten goals and 12 assists as Barca claimed La Liga – but the majority of reports have focused on how much money the club could get for him to ease their debts. He’s beyond dispensable; he’s uber-expendable. To the point where any club talking to Barcelona about anything, a player to buy, a player to sell, a pre-season friendly, is offered £60m-worth of Raphinha sprinkles.

Man Utd, Liverpool, Newcastle and every other Premier League club with more than a pot to piss in has been linked with the 26-year-old.

Kalvin Phillips (Leeds to Manchester City – £42m)
We wonder whether Amazon Prime hoped their upcoming documentary on Kalvin Phillips would feature rather more action from the midfielder in a Treble-winning season, and we assume they were left with little option but to title it ‘Kalvin Phillips: The Road to City’ having presumably discarded ‘Kalvin Phillips: Life at City’ as 90 minutes of footage of a footballer sitting on the bench doesn’t make for hugely engaging content.

We did though thoroughly enjoy thinking about the poor producer tasked with putting the trailer together which features Phillips hitting the bar against Bristol City in the fifth round of the FA Cup as his standout moment of the season. So standout in fact that it’s shown twice from two different angles.

There have been numerous examples of Manchester City players struggling in their first season before thriving under Pep Guardiola, but without injury to Rodri it’s incredibly difficult to see how Phillips gets in the team. A move away is vital to his Euro 2024 hopes. Newcastle and West Ham are both said to be keen.

Gleison Bremer (Torino to Juventus – £42.8m)
Tottenham were heavily linked with the Brazilian last summer before Bremer insisted he wanted 2022/23 to be his first season of Champions League football, which for him featured a solitary win, against Maccabi Haifa, as Juventus didn’t get past the group stage. Whoops.

He’ll be playing Europa Conference League football next season if he doesn’t move again and Bayern are reportedly interested in giving him a leg back up to the big time. Spurs’ interest remains though Daniel Levy has apparently baulked at his price tag, which is both unsurprising given it’s Levy but also absolutely reasonable given Juventus now for some reason value Bremer at €80m.