Ezri Konsa tops most expensive centre-backs ever aged 28 or over
Most expensive centre-back aged 28 or over, you’ll never sing that. Unless you’re Ezri Konsa. Then you might.
Konsa’s intra-Premier League move from Aston Villa to Arsenal has set a transfer record. A niche record, but a record all the same. He is now the most expensive player of his position and of his age (or above) in transfer history.
Now that’s got you thinking, here are the top 10 most expensive transfers of centre-backs aged 28 or above.
1. Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa to Arsenal) – £51m Konsa is arriving at Arsenal as cover for Gabriel Magalhaes and the currently injured William Saliba – despite costing about as much as they did put together.
It’s a hefty profit for Villa, who paid £12m to sign Konsa from then-Championship side Brentford seven years ago.
He coped well with the step up and blossomed into a full England international – and now a £51m player.
And so the Villa exodus continues, but they can – and will – only hope Unai Emery can keep the train rolling.
2. Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus to AC Milan) – £35.1m AC Milan went on a good old-fashioned (and ultimately disastrous) Spending Spree in the summer of 2017, with the capture of Bonucci from reigning Serie A champions Juventus the headline deal.
Considering Milan had just finished 28 points below Juve (this was very much their banter era), it was a bold move for one of the league’s most proven defenders.
The outcome? Milan finished sixth again in 2017-18, with Bonucci and their other assorted new signings improving their fortunes by a grand total of… one point.
“Within four years, I hope to win the Champions League. I want to win all the titles,” Bonucci, then 30, had vowed upon his arrival at Milan. In reality, within four years, he was three years into his second spell back with Juve.
Indeed, Bonucci buggered off back to Turin after a single season at the San Siro (more on that later). Not one of the costliest transfer horror stories there’s ever been, but one of the most humbling.
3. Cristian Romero (Tottenham to Atletico Madrid) – £34.2m The general reaction to Romero’s exit from Tottenham was little more than a ‘huh’ and a shrug.
You can forgive Spurs fans to feeling ambivalent towards some of their players after consecutive 17th-placed finishes, but this was their captain.
As good as Romero can be at his best, though, his penchant for a suspension became mildly infuriating.
Thus, Spurs were content to cash in on the 28-year-old this summer, sealing a deal worth just over £34m for him to move to Atletico Madrid.
Diego Simeone will be more forgiving of his antics, we can (pretty safely) assume.
4. Raphael Varane (Real Madrid to Manchester United) – £34m This one was a big deal, harking back to a time when big deals were more common for Manchester United than they generally have been in recent years.
Of course, they’ve spent tons of money and signed loads of high-profile players (or managers) since Sir Alex Ferguson, but attracting the cream of the crop while being unable to reclaim the Premier League title hasn’t always been easy.
The signing of Varane in 2021 felt seismic. This was one of the best defenders in the world, who’d just spent a decade with another of the best clubs in the world, Real Madrid, and he was still perceivably at his peak at 28.
United forked out a sizeable fee to get him – an initial £34m that would rise towards £42m with add-ons.
Varane gave them three years of service, helping them win an EFL Cup and an FA Cup before being released.
5. David Luiz (PSG to Chelsea) – £34m After signing a 23-year-old David Luiz for £21.3m in January 2011, Chelsea sold him as the world’s most expensive defender for £50m to PSG in 2014.
Two years later, the Brazilian was back at the Bridge, returning as a 29-year-old valued at £34m.
While his first spell had seen European glory, his return coincided with Chelsea going on to win the 2016-17 Premier League.
It was the first of three seasons he spent back in the blue shirt before moving across London to join Arsenal.
6. Mats Hummels (Bayern Munich to Borussia Dortmund) – £33.8m Until Roma ruined the pattern right at the end, Hummels’ career saw him exclusively thrown back and forth between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
A modern-day Bundesliga and Germany great, Hummels made his final move from Bayern to Dortmund at the age of 30 in the summer of 2019.
It set him up for a five-year spell with Dortmund, which would culminate in him inspiring them to the 2024 Champions League final.
He then left them as a free agent for his short-lived Serie A adventure.
7. Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli to Chelsea) – £33m It’s easy to forget given how much of a disaster this move turned out to be for Chelsea, but Koulibaly was consistently brilliant for Napoli and so you could see why they went for him.
The timing was just out, though. What’s the opposite of jumping the gun? Whatever it is, it’s what Chelsea did with Koulibaly.
He’d been linked with a Premier League move for years by the time they got their hands on him as a 31-year-old.
His spell at Stamford Bridge lasted just one year before he was sold to Al Hilal at a loss.
8. Kostas Manolas (Roma to Napoli) – £32m He’s most famous for that goal against Barcelona in the Champions League, but Manolas was a decent servant to Roma for five years.
He reached the end of his time there in the summer of 2019, a year after his Barcelona escapades, moving south to Napoli.
It was worth roughly £32m, but was counterbalanced by midfielder Amadou Diawara going the other way for about £19m. FFP workarounds aren’t as new as you think.
Coincidentally, Napoli signed Manolas – then 28 – to partner Koulibaly at the heart of their defence. But in his two-and-a-half-year spell, he never quite eclipsed his centre-back partner.
9. Leonardo Bonucci (AC Milan to Juventus) – £31.2m It’s that man again. A year after his Milan move, Bonucci retraced his steps, swapping places with Gonzalo Higuain (you remember him) and Mattia Caldara (you probably don’t remember him).
The Bonucci and Caldara deal was a direct swap deal with both players valued at £31.2m (what were we saying about FFP workarounds?).
Once again, it was Juve who got the better end of the stick. Bonucci spent another five years with them, winning two more league titles.
Caldara, in contrast, suffered massively from injuries. Sadly, he was only able to play once in Serie A for Milan, somewhat out of sympathy on the final day of the 2023-24 season.
10. Moussa Niakhate (Nottingham Forest to Lyon) – £27m One of the raft of signings Nottingham Forest made upon their Premier League return in 2022, Niakhate lasted two years at the City Ground.
It was then, at the age of 28, he was sold to Lyon for a fee of £27m – the second highest fee the French side had ever paid for a player at that point.
Niakhate had 35 Premier League appearances to his name at the time but has played almost twice as many Ligue 1 games in the corresponding timeframe.
READ NEXT: Top 10 biggest transfer window spends ever as Tottenham threaten
