Transfer fees in football have taken on a life of their own in the past 15 years, with Liverpool guilty of paying hugely over the odds at times.
The Reds smashed their transfer record twice in 2025, paying over £100m for the first time on Florian Wirtz, and then doing it again to sign Alexander Isak.
But although Isak currently holds the title of being British football’s most expensive ever player, football finance expert Kieran Maguire has claimed that the Swede actually sits 15th on the list.
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Adjusting fees for inflation, Maguire has published an updated list of the Premier League’s biggest transfers, with a staggering revelation that Andy Carroll – Liverpool‘s record signing in January 2011 at £35m – would have been worth more than £110m in 2026.
Liverpool have paid over £100m six times
According to Maguire’s list published on X, the £35m Liverpool paid for Carroll 15-and-a-half years ago make him the 37th biggest signing of the Premier League era.
The striker, who failed to justify his fee throughout his stay at Anfield, sits five places above Emile Heskey, who joined from Leicester for £11m in February 2000. As per Maguire’s maths, Heskey’s fee would have been a whopping £107.3m in 2026.
After Carroll, the next Liverpool entry is via Virgil van Dijk, who became easily the most expensive signing in the club’s history when joining for £75m in January 2018. Eight-and-a-half years later, and the Reds’ captain would reportedly be worth £112.6m, putting him 34th on this list.
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Florian Wirtz’s £116m signing was only one year ago, but Maguire claims that £7m has been added in today’s terms, making the German a £123.1m player and the 23rd most expensive signing in English football.
Isak is the next Reds to feature, with his fee accruing just over £7m at £132.6m, putting him in the top 15, one below Jack Grealish and his £100m move to Man City in 2021, and one above Didier Drogba, who joined Chelsea for just £24m in 2004.
Amazingly, Maguire claims that the most expensive signing in Liverpool history actually came 31 years ago, in 1995, when the Reds paid £8.5m to buy Stan Collymore from Aston Villa.
Crazily, that would make Collymore worth a quite frankly unbelievable £176.8m in today’s money, and install him as the fourth biggest English transfer of all-time.
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The fifth is Fernando Torres, who Liverpool banked £50m for on the same day Carroll joined from Newcastle, which would reportedly be worth £157.8m in today’s terms.
Alan Shearer sits a long way alone at the top of the list, with his £15m signing in 1996 being worth a reported £236.9m 30 years later. Shearer is the only £200m+ player on the list, with his transfer being worth more than £38m clear of second placed Rio Ferdinand, who is the only player to feature twice.
Liverpool will surely throw in a new entry later this summer, as they continue to show determination in the race to sign Yan Diomande from RB Leipzig. But even though the Ivorian’s transfer fee looks likely to reach past £100m, it turns out that in relative terms he could actually be cheaper than Andy Carroll.
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