Financial expert dismisses claims City have broken the market
Former Manchester City financial adviser Stefan Borson has pushed back against suggestions that the club's capture of Elliot Anderson has ruined the transfer market for everyone else.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson described the £116million fee for the Nottingham Forest midfielder as “absolutely ridiculous” but insisted such fees are nothing unusual in the modern game.
“It's hardly the first time players have been signed for enormous amounts that people, from the outside, thought were excessive,” he said.
Borson pointed out that eye-watering fees for relatively unproven talent have been happening for over a decade, referencing deals going back to 2013 and earlier. He dismissed the idea that City's spending represents anything out of the ordinary.
“There's a little bit of inflation. But I don't think it's particularly dramatic or beyond the typical inflation,” Borson added. “If you were to look at inflation-adjusted prices, for example, you would see that Elliott Anderson is well within range and does not stick out.”
The summer window has seen plenty of heavy spending across the Premier League. Tottenham have shelled out £185m on Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes, while Chelsea paid £40m for Geovany Quenda. Last summer clubs collectively spent over £3billion, though whether a new record will be set this time remains unclear.
When adjusted for inflation, Anderson's move ranks 31st in the all-time Premier League list. Alan Shearer's 1996 switch to Newcastle leads that table at £237m in today's money, with Rio Ferdinand's Manchester United move second at £198.5m.
City's business comes just months after Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak for slightly more — context that makes Anderson's fee look less extraordinary than the initial headlines suggested.
Supporters frustrated by the summer's big-money deals might pause to consider that, in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing new.