James is the latest player to have signed a new contract before the 2026-27 campaign alongside Fletcher Anderson, Josh Macleod, Henry Thomas, Gareth Davies, Dan Davis, Sam Lousi, Harri O’Connor, Jac Davies, Will Evans, Carwyn Leggatt-Jones and Gabe Hawley.

The club have also added 10 new signings, with fly-half Gareth Anscombe, props Chris Apoua and Corey Domachowski, second rows Harvey Cuckson, Alex Groves and Tom Allen, hookers John McKee and George Roberts, full-back Isaac Murray-Macgregor and All Black Cullen Grace arriving in Llanelli.

“Keeping Eddie at Parc y Scarlets is a significant signing for our club and we are delighted he will continue his rugby journey with us,” said Scarlets director of rugby Nigel Davies.

“Having players like Eddie at the heart of what we’re building is as important as new players coming into the squad.

“We’re proud of our ethos of developing our own players and we want to give our young Welsh players an environment in which they know they can achieve their ambitions in a Scarlets jersey.”

We are nearing the end of the summer transfer window, and some clubs need to sell for various reasons.

They may need to get rid of players on big salaries, find the right time to sell players for peak profit, or they need to meet financial regulations.

The issue, though, is that not all clubs are as good at selling as others. So how does your club get on? And who is their record sale?

Our writers go through each Premier League club.

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Arsenal

Record sale: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool, August 2017, £35million ($47m)

Whether it is holding on to players too long, tanking their value by leaving them on the bench, unsuccessful loan spells or offering lesser players wealthy contracts, Arsenal don’t seem to be able to compete with Premier League rivals when it comes to selling players.

Aaron Ramsdale was an established England international and was named in the Premier League Team of the Year in 2023. However, after a year sitting on the bench as David Raya’s understudy, Arsenal sold him to Southampton for £25m ($33m). 

Compare that to the £40m Manchester City just received from Leeds United for James Trafford, a goalkeeper in a similar predicament to Ramsdale.

This summer, the club have struggled to sell Reiss Nelson, Gabriel Jesus and Fabio Vieira. 

Nnamdi Onyeagwara

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Aston Villa

Record sale: Morgan Rogers to Chelsea, July 2026, £117million

Having finished in the top six across the previous three seasons, Villa are competing among the elite but do not have elite-level revenues yet, so they know they have to sell well.

This is not only to guard against financial sanctions, but also to reinvest. No one who has been in the Premier League for the previous three seasons and are still there have a lower net spend.

Rogers was a record for a British player and Youri Tielemans’ £35m departure was a solid, if somewhat low price, of course influenced by his release clause. Other high-profile exits include Moussa Diaby (£50m), Douglas Luiz (£42.5m), Jacob Ramsey (£40m), and Jhon Duran (£65m). In the aforementioned examples, Villa have generated around £235m from player sales, having only recruited them for £65m.

Jacob Tanswell

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Bournemouth

Record sale: Dominic Solanke to Tottenham Hotspur, August 2024, £65million

Usually good at selling, although there are exceptions. Bournemouth are used to being pillaged by bigger clubs for their bigger assets, yet have always replaced well, largely through the fee received. In the summer of 2025, they sold Milos Kerkez to Liverpool for £40million. But also that summer, they sold Illia Zabarnyi to Paris Saint-Germain for around £57m and Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid for £50m, which was his release clause. 

They then received £42.5m for Dango Ouattara, which, considering he struggled to make Bournemouth’s strongest XI, appeared an excellent sale. Another wide player left in January, with talisman Antoine Semenyo joining Manchester City for £62.5m. Like Huijsen, Bournemouth should have received more, yet it was another case of a release clause. This summer, Bournemouth lost out on a fee with Marcos Senesi leaving for free. So while they are mainly effective sellers, they have occasionally left money on the table.

Jacob Tanswell

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Brentford

Record sale: Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United, July 2025, £65million, plus £6m in add-ons

Brentford built up a solid reputation in the Championship for identifying and developing undervalued players before flipping them for a significant profit. Ollie Watkins, Neal Maupay and Said Benrahma were the prime examples but they resisted selling their best players during their first couple of years in the Premier League.

David Raya’s departure to Arsenal, initially on loan, in the summer of 2023 signalled a return to their previous policy and, a year later, Ivan Toney moved to Saudi Arabia with Al-Ahli for a slightly higher fee (£33.6m) than the previous record sale of Watkins to Aston Villa (£28m plus £5m in add-ons). 

Last year, Brentford cashed in on two of their biggest assets. They sold Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United for up to £71m — double the amount they received for Toney. Brentford reluctantly allowed Yoane Wissa to join Newcastle United for £55m after he agitated for a move. This summer has been much calmer and the biggest departure has been Jordan Henderson’s move to Chelsea. 

Brentford are shrewd operators in the transfer market and, crucially, keep improving despite losing their most talented players.

Jay Harris

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Brighton & Hove Albion

Record sale: Moises Caicedo to Chelsea, August 2023, £115m

Brighton accept they will lose players who perform well to bigger clubs. It then becomes a case of choosing the right moment for themselves and extracting maximum value.

Moises Caicedo was a good example. Arsenal and Chelsea wanted him in the January 2023 transfer window. The offers were much lower than the £115m Chelsea ended up paying in the summer for the Ecuador midfielder.

Selling big in the summer window, when they do the bulk of their business, has become a familiar theme. Joao Pedro went to Chelsea for £60m last year, Jan Paul van Hecke to Tottenham for £52m this year. Losing top players has not harmed the club’s progress.

Andy Naylor

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Chelsea

Record sale: Eden Hazard to Real Madrid, July 2019, £89m with significant add-ons

Chelsea’s high-volume player-trading model means there tends to be an awful lot of names on the books, and therefore a lot of potential assets. The most impressive aspect of their business is a knack for extracting healthy fees for players who are far from first-team regulars: Tyrique George, for example, joined Everton this summer after a half-season loan for an initial £18m with £6m in potential add-ons, despite only making one Premier League start for Chelsea. 

The other notable strand of their selling business is the profit they have been able to turn on academy products like George. Mason Mount’s move to Manchester United in a deal worth up to £60m is the most famous example, and Trevoh Chalobah’s £30m transfer to Como is the most recent. However, they have also made profit on Marc Guehi’s move to Crystal Palace in 2021, Lewis Hall’s transfer to Newcastle in 2023 (on loan with a buy obligation), and more. Whether they would have benefited on the pitch from holding on to those homegrown talents instead of cashing in is, of course, a separate question. 

There are important caveats, though. As The Athletic’s Chris Weatherspoon has explained, last summer’s player sales only translated to £32m in bottom-line profit for the 2025-26 season. Underlying operating losses are high at Stamford Bridge and continuing to sell well is crucial. Even with heavy sales, they have still breached UEFA’s financial rules.

They are also, evidently, not always able to sell unwanted players: Raheem Sterling ended up reaching an agreement to terminate his contract early to pursue free agency. 

Simon Johnson

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Coventry City

Record sale: Viktor Gyokeres to Sporting CP, July 2023, just over £20m

Ahead of their return to the top flight, Coventry have broken their transfer record on three consecutive occasions this window, bringing in Switzerland centre-back Aurele Amenda, goalkeeper Carl Rushworth and midfielder Caleb Yirenkyi — all players with obvious resale value. Winger Loum Tchaouna is another exciting young prospect, arriving from Burnley. 

There hasn’t been much activity on the departures front, with popular midfielder Jamie Allen leaving at the end of his contract, while Jahnoah Markelo was sold to UAE Pro League club Shabab Al Ahli after just six months at the club.

Last summer, Coventry sold their captain Ben Sheaf to Wrexham for a reported £6.5 million — a sizeable fee in the second tier — and they coped fine without him, winning the Championship title in style.

The last time Coventry underwent a major overhaul of the squad was in summer 2023, when striker Gyokeres left to join Sporting CP for a club-record fee, while Gustavo Hamer joined Sheffield United in a deal worth around £15m. Hamer, a fan favourite, rejoined Coventry last week. 

Tom Burrows

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Crystal Palace

Record sale: Eberechi Eze to Arsenal, August 2025, £60million, plus £7.5m in add-ons

They are better sellers than they used to be. 

For six years, Aaron Wan-Bissaka held the record for Palace’s biggest sale, when he joined Manchester United for £50m in 2019. That move was an outlier for Palace at a time when they were in the habit of signing players at the end of their prime and letting their contracts run down. And, of course, rejecting bid after bid for their only saleable asset in Wilfried Zaha.

The transfer policy took a big shift in 2021 under then-director of football Dougie Freedman, who focused efforts on signing young talent from the Championship, developing them into world-class players, and selling them for profits before reinvesting the money. Hardly reinventing the wheel, but it’s served the club well.

Of that crop, Michael Olise was the first to leave, for a release clause in the region of £50million. Eberechi Eze then left for Arsenal a year later for upwards of £60million, and one would assume Adam Wharton will be the next player to break that record.

Max Matthews

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Everton

Record sale: Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United, July 2017, initial £75million

As the fee for Lukaku, sold in 2017, attests, Everton tend to extract good value from their sales. 

The club also developed a habit of making good money from player trading during Kevin Thelwell’s spell as director of football, which helped them stay afloat at a time of huge financial uncertainty. Richarlison was sold to Tottenham Hotspur for around £60m, Amadou Onana joined Aston Villa for £50million and academy graduate Anthony Gordon was sold to Newcastle United for an initial £40m. 

Historically, the greater challenge has been finding a way to cash in on top earners before their deals run out. And key assets have not always been replaced properly.

But the swap deal involving Dwight McNeil and Brennan Johnson appears to represent another savvy piece of business, with the former having just a year to run on his Everton deal and the latter having cost Crystal Palace £35m in January.

Patrick Boyland

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Fulham

Record sale: Aleksandar Mitrovic to Al Hilal, August 2023, £45million, based on reporting from The Athletic

It has not been a vintage summer of selling at Craven Cottage. Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez, Fulham’s top two goalscorers last season, left on free transfers. Sasa Lukic and Issa Diop, both first-team regulars, were sold to Ipswich Town for a combined total of less than £20million.

Financially, it leaves the club in a tricky situation. The sales of Joao Palhinha, Jay Stansfield and Aleksandar Mitrovic raised more than £100m across the summers of 2023 and 2024, but since then, Fulham have not attracted a fee of anything above £10m. 

The signings of Gonzalo Garcia, Shea Charles, Cesar Palacios and Jonah Kusi-Asare, all younger than 23, could be a blueprint — players of different profiles, varying skill sets and contrasting backgrounds, but all sharing the promise of sell-on value.

Developing that potential into profit may prove just as important as what they do on the pitch.

Justin Guthrie

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Hull City

Record sale: Jacob Greaves to Ipswich Town, July 2024, £18m

Hull’s biggest sales have owed much to the importance of the club’s academy. As well as selling Jarrod Bowen to West Ham United and Keane Lewis-Potter to Brentford, there was Jacob Greaves’ move to Ipswich two years ago to book a profit they have neither seen before nor since.

Jaden Philogene, bought from Aston Villa in 2023 and then sold back to the same club a year later, is perhaps the only recent example of a player who was signed, developed, and sold on for big money. Before that, you must go back to the glut of exits in the wake of relegation from the Premier League in 2017, with Sam Clucas, Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson all sold off in one summer to raise big funds.

This summer’s sale of Ivor Pandur (to Rangers) and Kyle Joseph (to Middlesbrough) brought in approximately £10m combined but there is room for improvement in a trading model that attempts to sign players with a high ceiling. Charlie Hughes, the subject of failed bids from Coventry City last summer after joining from Wigan Athletic, is an example of their ambitions. 

Philip Buckingham

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Ipswich Town

Record sale: Omari Hutchinson to Nottingham Forest, August 2025, £37.5m

Ipswich’s 2024 promotion to the Premier League transformed the bracket of transfer fee associated with the club. While the strategy of investing in potential was not enough to keep them in the top flight, it did garner two record sales. 

Liam Delap, signed for an initial £15m from Manchester City, was sold to Chelsea for £30million. It represented a significant windfall, but there was frustration that it could have been more. The striker’s modest release clause became active after Ipswich’s relegation, ruling out a bidding war that could have ensued following his impressive 2024-25.

Delap’s fee was surpassed by Omari Hutchinson, who arrived from Chelsea for an initial £20million after an eye-catching loan, and fetched a tidy profit given his inconsistent first top-flight season.

The sale of Nathan Broadhead to Wrexham (£7.5m) and Luke Woolfenden’s Coventry City move demonstrated the club’s ability to make decent money on fringe players. While a loss was made on goalkeeper Arijanet Muric, as will likely be the case with Sammie Szmodics and Chiedozie Ogbene, it’s a world away from where the club was under previous owners. 

Ali Rampling

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Leeds United

Record sale: Raphinha to Barcelona, July 2022, £55m

One of the emerging trends of the 49ers Enterprises ownership at Elland Road is its apparent inability to pull off impressive or eye-catching sales. 

Georginio Rutter and Archie Gray each commanded £40m fees in 2024. However, Leeds did not actually want to sell Rutter, whose fee was triggered by a release clause that barely secured any profit on their original investment. And Gray, sold to ease fears over financial regulations, was arguably the last player Leeds fans wanted to lose.

The problem this administration has is the contracts and recruitment of previous years. The players they want to move on are, generally, either not good enough or on eye-watering wages.

And a good example of the frustration some fans have had came this summer. Pascal Struijk and Jan Paul van Hecke were both in the final year of their contracts at Brighton & Hove Albion and Leeds. Struijk was sold for around £18m and Van Hecke for around £52m this summer.

Van Hecke was in the Netherlands squad at the World Cup, but does that justify such a gulf in fee? Struijk’s been on the fringes of national selection and has more Premier League appearances.

Beren Cross

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Liverpool

Record sale: Philippe Coutinho, January 2018, £108m, rising to £142m

Liverpool’s selling strategy could never be discussed without mentioning our Brazilian friend. Ahh, the infamous ‘Coutinho Money’, so legendary it spawned its own hashtag and conspiracy theories over where it actually went.

The truth is that it helped Liverpool sign the game-changing defensive duo of Alisson and Virgil van Dijk.

Liverpool should also be recognised as exceptional sellers. Under their self-sustaining model, they work hard to identify and develop players at a young age and then move them on for big fees. Jarell Quansah, Ben Gannon-Doak, Fabio Carvalho, Sepp van den Berg and Tyler Morton are all recent examples.

Liverpool have also extracted big fees for players coming towards the end of their contracts, on the fringe of the starting XI or approaching 30. The sales of Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez last summer show this and you always back those in charge to get a good deal for the club. 

Gregg Evans

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Manchester City

Record sale: Julian Alvarez, August 2024, £64.4m with £17.1m in add-ons

City have become so good at selling players that you cannot move around social media at the moment without seeing conspiracy theories about clubs overpaying for players as part of a global conspiracy.

Getting £40m for James Trafford and £51m for Tijjani Reijnders after one season has irked people, as have rumours about an £85m bid from Tottenham Hotspur for Savinho.

Even the Alvarez deal two years ago fell into that category. City have also got good fees for young players over the past five years in particular, a result of clubs wanting to harness the coaching that they have been given, with City’s teams regularly dominating youth competitions and playing Pep Guardiola-style football.

That essentially applies to senior players, too, with anybody playing for City always likely to be in demand.

Sam Lee

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Manchester United

Record sale: Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid, June 2009, £80m

United’s focus has never traditionally been on outgoings — but given their leadership’s determination to balance the books, they need to be better. 

In June, Jadon Sancho finally departed without the club recouping any of the £73m spent on him. He is an extreme example, but far from the only player who has struggled to secure a permanent exit despite having little or no prospect of a future at Old Trafford. 

Then there are the sales United have made, but which have fallen far short of turning a profit. In 2025, Rasmus Hojlund was loaned to Napoli in a move that has now turned permanent for €44m (£38m; $51.4m), while Anthony was sold to Real Betis for a €25m package. 

It is not all bad. Securing £40m for Alejandro Garnacho, who had no future at United under Ruben Amorim, was a significant sale in 2025. Goalkeeper Radek Vitek has moved to Middlesbrough for an initial £7m, which could double with add-ons.

The idea of Carrington being viewed as a vehicle for profit, rather than following a tradition of producing future first-team stars, is anathema to most supporters and Carrick has been vocal about the importance of the club’s academy. But where youth players do not have a future at United and are best served by a move, or want one as in Vitek’s case, the club should be pushing for maximum value. 

Cerys Jones

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Newcastle United

Record sale: Alexander Isak to Liverpool, September 2025, £125m

Historically, including post-takeover, they have not been brilliant. That is why they were forced into a desperate position in June 2024, whereby they acquiesced to Nottingham Forest’s demands and sold academy product Elliot Anderson for £35m (without a sell-on clause) and agreed to acquire Odysseas Vlachodimos, a goalkeeper, for £20m in return.

Without the sale of Anderson (and Yankuba Minteh to Brighton), Newcastle would have breached the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), having invested heavily since Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) arrived as majority shareholders in October 2021 without recouping significant fees.

Under David Hopkinson, the present CEO, and Ross Wilson, the sporting director who arrived in October, the “trading model” has been redrawn. With Newcastle having failed to comply with UEFA’s financial regulations, too, despite selling Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a British-record £125m last year (having torpedoed their entire summer by allowing the saga to drag out), there has been a necessity to sell better and bring in substantial fees.

Three impressive sales, certainly from a financial perspective, have taken place during this window. Barcelona agreed to pay up to €80m for Anthony Gordon in May, Tottenham Hotspur will spend up to £100m on Sandro Tonali, while Arsenal committed £75m for Bruno Guimaraes, who turns 29 in November.

Newcastle are now extracting sky-high fees and selling on their own terms, but the difficulty is finding replacements with sufficient quality and experience.

Chris Waugh

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Nottingham Forest

Record sale: Elliot Anderson to Manchester City, July 2026, £116million

A series of astute sales over the last few years have allowed Forest to continue investing in players. The £35million deal that brought Anderson to Forest from Newcastle two years ago involved backup goalkeeper Odi Vlachodimos moving to the north-east as a £20million make-weight, for example. That may qualify as the best transfer deal the club has ever done.

The sales of Brennan Johnson (£47.5million to Tottenham in September 2023), Anthony Elanga (£55million to Newcastle, July 2025) and Moussa Niakhate (£27million to Lyon, July 2024) all helped to boost the coffers, with Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis known to be a tough negotiator.  

Paul Taylor

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Sunderland

Record sale: Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund, June 2025, £32m

Sunderland’s strategy has been clear in recent summers. Sustainability has been a buzzword under owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and that has typically involved selling off a key player to fund strengthening.

Ross Stewart was sold to Southampton for £8m in 2023 and then it was Jack Clarke headed for the exit, joining Ipswich for £15m a year later. Both deals returned significant profits for a Championship club, as did the transfer which took Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund last summer following promotion. That deal trumped the £30m fee collected from Jordan Pickford’s move to Everton in 2017.

Sunderland’s rise to the Premier League and Europe has led to a revised approach over holding on to their best assets but there has still been scope to sell fringe players this summer. Eliezer Mayenda was sold to Rennes for £21.5m, while unwanted goalkeeper Anthony Patterson joined Wrexham in a £8m deal. Those exits will help fund the necessary recruitment to add depth to Regis Le Bris’ squad.

Philip Buckingham

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Tottenham Hotspur

Record sale: Harry Kane to Bayern Munich, August 2023, £86.4m

Historically, their record has been pretty average. Former executive chairman Daniel Levy was an expert at extracting big fees for Tottenham’s best players, including Harry Kane, Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Kyle Walker, but was guilty of holding on for too long with others who underperformed. Levy missed the right window to move on Dele Alli, Danny Rose, Lucas Moura and many more.

A lot has changed at Spurs since Levy was sacked last September, including their approach to the transfer market. Spurs are spending heavily on transfer fees and wages in a way they have never done before and are cashing in on players not part of Roberto De Zerbi’s long-term plans.

 

Eyebrows have been raised around the decision to sell Djed Spence to Inter for €30m and Cristian Romero to Atletico Madrid for €40m. The reality is Spence has never been first choice and his value has increased following his performances with England at the World Cup. Romero’s age (28), disciplinary record and injury history were always going to make it slightly tricky to receive a huge fee. 

Some Spurs fans felt frustrated about Luka Vuskovic’s departure to Brighton & Hove Albion but £46m is a decent amount of money for a 19-year-old with no Premier League experience and a 20 per cent sell-on clause was included. Chief executive officer Vinai Venkatesham, sporting director Johan Lange and director of football operations Rafi Moersen deserve praise for earning over £100m by selling fringe players this summer. 

Jay Harris