Declan Rice has taken to life exceptionally well as Arsenal’s club-record signing following his £105 million summer move across London from West Ham, with his virtuoso performances already establishing him as the team’s heartbeat in central midfield.
Indeed, many observers have quipped that the substantial fee Arsenal paid for the England international in July has proved to be a bona fide bargain.
This then prompts the question – which other club-record signings at the time they were signed have wound up being unqualified successes? Here are six of the best instances from the past 30 years in the Premier League era.
Dennis Bergkamp – Arsenal – 1995/96
Embed from Getty ImagesWhen Dennis Bergkamp arrived in north London to sign for Arsenal in June 1995 for a club-record £7.5 million fee from Inter Milan, it cannot be overlooked that the Dutchman was joining a club at the lowest ebb of their recent history. The Gunners had finished a lowly 12th in the previous Premier League campaign, in which they also dismissed manager George Graham.
With that context, the fact Bergkamp initially struggled to hit the ground running makes more sense in hindsight, as he failed to score in his first six league games for Arsenal. However, once the Dutch maestro got off the mark with a spectacular brace at home against Southampton, there was no looking back, as Bergkamp eventually helped the club to a fifth-placed finish and a return to European football.
And when Arsene Wenger entered the club as manager the following season, Bergkamp went from strength to strength. He became an integral part of two separate league and cup double-winning teams in the 1997/98 and 2001/02 seasons, earning the PFA Player of the Year in the former campaign, as well as becoming an “Invincible” in the unbeaten 2003/04 Premier League winning season. Bergkamp retired in May 2006 after spending 11 years at the club and making 423 appearances in total.
Alan Shearer – Newcastle – 1996/97
Embed from Getty ImagesBergkamp’s £7.5 million move was a British transfer record at the time, but just a year later, it was obliterated by Newcastle United. The Magpies shelled out £15 million to take England’s star striker and boyhood fan Alan Shearer from Blackburn Rovers in July 1996.
Shearer had scored a staggering 112 goals in 138 Premier League appearances during his four years in Lancashire and secured a Premier League winners’ medal in 1994/95. Indeed, he would have expected to add to his trophy haul, upon joining Kevin Keegan’s fabled ‘Entertainers’ side who had finished second the season before and narrowly missed out on their first league title in 69 years.
The trophies never did come for Shearer back home in the north East, but his goals continued at an unrelenting rate. 25 league goals in his debut season earned him the PFA Player of the Year, as well as the Premier League Golden Boot, as he formed a deadly partnership with fellow countryman Les Ferdinand. Shearer eventually became the club’s record goal scorer in February 2006, shortly before he retired later that year with a grand tally of 206 goals in 405 appearances.
Rio Ferdinand – Manchester Utd – 2002/03
Embed from Getty ImagesManchester United broke the British transfer record in July 2002 to purchase Rio Ferdinand from fierce rivals Leeds for £30 million. Yet, the England defender by then was no stranger to the premise of signing for a club with a huge price tag around his neck. In fact, Leeds had already broken the British transfer record to sign him 20 months earlier for a then-record £18 million from West Ham.
Ferdinand by his admission, had not truly lived up to the mantle of the world’s most expensive defender in his early United career. This was despite already being an established England international, and winning a Premier League title in his first season with the club. And in December 2003, he was suspended for eight months for failing to attend a scheduled drugs test after a training session.
However, by the time he left the Red Devils in the summer of 2014, Ferdinand departed as a certified legend and one of the club’s best-ever defenders. His formidable central defensive partnership with Nemanja Vidic formed the bedrock for United clinching five Premier League titles in seven seasons, including three consecutive titles from 2007 to 2009, as well as a Champions League win in 2008, in which Ferdinand lifted the trophy as captain at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
Didier Drogba – Chelsea – 2004/05
Embed from Getty ImagesDidier Drogba’s solitary season with French side Marseille in 2003/04 ended with 32 goals in all competitions, the Ligue 1 Player of the Year award, and a UEFA Cup runners-up medal. On top of that, the season ended with him moving to a cash-laden Chelsea side led by Jose Mourinho for a club-record £24 million in July 2004.
Although the Ivorian striker captured two Premier League titles in his first two years in west London, Drogba came very close to leaving in 2006. There were frustrations with the negative press coverage he was receiving, on top of his intermittent scoring form, finishing each of his first two seasons with a modest tally of 16 goals in 41 appearances.
Once Drogba had been convinced to stay, things drastically changed in the 2006/07 season. He fired 20 league goals to win the Premier League’s Golden Boot and scored cup final winners in both the FA Cup and League Cup that year. A Premier League crown followed in the 2009/10 campaign, where he scored a remarkable 29 league goals, before helping clinch a long-awaited Champions League triumph for Chelsea in 2012 after his late equaliser, and subsequent decisive penalty in the shootout.
Drogba returned to the Blues for a second spell in the 2014/15 season, claiming another Premier League title under Jose Mourinho before leaving for good.
Kevin de Bruyne – Manchester City – 2015/16
If things had gone differently for Kevin de Bruyne at Chelsea, he might have played alongside Drogba in that victorious 2014/15 Premier League campaign. As it was, the Belgian midfielder instead departed the club the season before to German side Wolfsburg, where de Bruyne excelled, becoming the Bundesliga Player of the Year in 2015 before his £55 million move to Manchester City in August that same year.
Despite vocal criticism from sections of the media that City had overpaid for the midfielder, it became quickly apparent that the Belgian had finally found a home in England. De Bruyne won the club’s Player of the Year in his first season, whilst also collecting a League Cup winners’ medal in 2016.
Yet, the arrival of Pep Guardiola in the summer of 2016 took de Bruyne’s game to a whole new level. The City manager facilitated the Belgian’s evolution into an elite playmaker and the definitive orchestrator of several fearsome City sides over the past seven years.
And his trophy haul is now as jaw-dropping as his spellbinding attacking play, as de Bruyne has won five Premier League titles, two FA Cups, four more League Cups, and a Champions League, as well as back-to-back PFA Player of the Year awards in 2020 and 2021. Perhaps the Premier League’s greatest-ever midfielder?
Virgil van Dijk – Liverpool – 2017/18
Embed from Getty ImagesThe only regret manager Jurgen Klopp might still have with the £75 million club-record fee they paid to Southampton for the Dutch defender is that Liverpool were unable to acquire his services earlier that season.
Van Dijk joined Liverpool to much acclaim in January 2018, after a protracted summer transfer saga and he made an instant impact, scoring a winner on his full debut against local rivals Everton in the FA Cup. The Dutchman quickly emerged as an imperious component of Klopp’s defence, helping bolster the Reds’ rearguard on their way to a losing effort in that year’s Champions League final in Kyiv against Real Madrid.
And the next season, van Dijk firmly consolidated himself as the world’s best defender, winning the Champions League against Tottenham in 2019, alongside a PFA Player of the Year crown and a close second-place finish in that year’s Ballon d’Or rankings behind Lionel Messi.
Since then, van Dijk has won every major trophy possible at Liverpool, including their first league title in 30 years during the 2019/20 season. The Dutchman also recovered from a ruptured ACL in October 2020 to lead the Reds to within two matches of a historic quadruple in the 2021/22 season, winning the FA Cup and League Cup and coming up just short in the Premier League and Champions League.
