Liverpool have £70m ACE up Richard Hughes' sleeve

The last few weeks of this summer's transfer window has been a truly educational experience.

We've all known that player price tags have been on the rise steadily over the years, but we might have officially reached new levels of insanity when it comes to valuations in the Premier League.

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For whatever reason, the 'Premier League proven' aspect of players in England right now has led to overseas talents being ignored, with some truly extortionate prices being paid to direct rivals.

In case you're not quite aware of what I'm talking about, let me fill you in on all the recent events.

Transfer valuations no longer make sense

Matheus Cunha started off proceedings with his move to Manchester United, which was worth £62.5m to Wolves - an extraordinary fee for a player who has shone, but hardly set the world alight in recent years - delivering 45 goal contributions in the last two seasons.

He has been their main attacking outlet and whether he could deliver similar returns in a United side that struggles to really act as a team is yet to be seen, but expectations are high for £62.5m.

Then we have Bryan Mbuemo, who also looks to be going to United. And a similar fee will need to be paid to a mid-table Premier League club for his services. Brentford are demanding £65m to lose him.

After that we have Anthony Elanga's move from Nottingham Forest to Newcastle, which is costing the Magpies £55m - a £40m profit on the £15m that United sold him to Forest for just two years ago.

Following on, we have Noni Madueke who Arsenal are interested in, and Chelsea are looking for a fee of £50m.

Mohamed Kudus is also on the move, although his transfer from West Ham to Tottenham actually seems to somewhat make sense, with £55m being exchanged for him.

Morgan Gibbs-White is also a target of Tottenham's, yet Forest are demanding £60m and Newcastle are said to be tempted by a possible move for Yohan Wissa from Brentford, although a fee 'in excess of £50m' is rumoured.

It's genuinely mind-boggling. Since when was £50/60m the going rate for a young player in the Premier League? It's not like we're talking about seasoned professionals, these are ambitious moves.

Very few of them actually have track records that you could trust. As mentioned, Cunha's ability to play against a low-block is unknown. Ordinarily, he plays in one when Wolves are struggling.

Mbuemo is approaching the prime of his career, but last season was the first campaign where he reached double-digits for goals in all competitions since the 2019/20 season in the Championship.

Madueke is only 23-years-old and he has shown promising goal returns, but he features predominantly on the right-hand side and his £50m fee is for him to be a backup to Bukayo Saka.

At least with Kudus, we're talking about a player with Champions League experience, after spending three years of his career with Ajax, so it's understandable what he brings to the table for £55m.

But Gibbs-White's £60m is nonsensical after one standout campaign and Wissa is set to be out of contract next summer, so demanding £50m makes no sense. Oh, and he's 28-years-old.

Clubs will do what they want, and in reality, it's not for us to judge. It's their money after all. But it's enough to put your head on Mars trying to work out exactly what a player might be worth nowadays.

Back in the day, we would all have our opinions of what seemed fair, and commonly we'd all agree.

The value of a player to a club would come into it - take the Jack Grealish £100m fee for example. At no point in his career was he worth £100m, but Villa needed compensation for losing him.

So that's all understandable, but we're now in a new era with the transfer market. One of the deals above particularly caught my eye and I think it can be useful for us to draw up some guidelines.

It's the Elanga move, and how Newcastle paid £55m for him. According to all websites that have stats for him, the winger's professional career goal contributions tally to 42 goals and assists. This includes 310 minutes in European competitions, alongside his league and domestic cup outings.

Now for me, an ideal player to compare him with is Harvey Elliott - a year younger than the Swede, eight more goals and assists, 1373 European minutes and he's a two-time U21 Euros winner, including being given the player of the tournament award just a few weeks ago.

If Elanga is £55m, what does that make Elliott? £60m/70m per my reckoning. Now of course, if we look at the estimations of FootballTransfers.com, then we'll see that he's worth €39m (£33.6m), but as we've just established, that sort of guideline doesn't matter in the transfer market anymore.

So to cut a long story short, Richard Hughes will know full well that he has an ace up his sleeve that can be used strategically whenever he wants. Liverpool have spent a lot of money in the transfer window so far, and more is expected, but Elliott is a gold mine that's just waiting to be cashed in.

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Whether the England international will get the move he desires this season is unknown. It would be beneficial for his career, but unless the Reds get a value for money offer, he's likely going nowhere.

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