Shearer at £237m? Where Anderson transfer stands in adjusted rankings
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- Elliot Anderson completed a £116m move from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City on Thursday 2 July 2026, making him the third-most expensive signing in Premier League history behind Alexander Isak (£125m) and Florian Wirtz.
- The Laws-Maguire Index, devised by football finance expert Kieran Maguire and professor Jason Laws, adjusts historic fees for the 3,500% rise in Premier League revenues since 1992 rather than inflation—and on that ranking Anderson falls to 31st.
- Alan Shearer's £15m 1996 transfer from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle United tops the adjusted list at £237m, making it the most extravagant signing of the Premier League era by the index's measure.
- Rio Ferdinand (£33m from Leeds to Manchester United, 2003) ranks second at £179m adjusted, while Juan Sebastian Veron (£28m from Lazio to Manchester United, 2001) is third at £199m adjusted.
- Stan Collymore's £9m 1995 Nottingham Forest-to-Liverpool move adjusts to £179m (fourth) and Fernando Torres' £50m Liverpool-to-Chelsea transfer adjusts to £177m (fifth), with half of the top 10 being Manchester United signings.
- Only four current Premier League players—Alexander Isak, Jack Grealish, Moises Caicedo, and Enzo Fernandez—feature in the adjusted top 20, underscoring the index's core finding that early-era clubs spent proportionally more aggressively than today's billion-pound buyers.
Why it matters: The Laws-Maguire Index reframes Premier League spending history: relative to club revenues, the 1990s and early 2000s produced more extravagant signings than today's record fees—a £15m Shearer in 1996 equates to £237m today, more than double Anderson's headline-grabbing £116m Man City move, which only ranks 31st on the adjusted list.
