Is Bundesliga tax real? Ranking every Premier League signing since 2022 summer window

Is Bundesliga tax fact or fiction? Over the years, signings from Germany have flopped in the Premier League, though the standard is improving. Manchester City new boy Omar Marmoush will hope to be more Erling Haaland than Milot Rashica.

We have ranked every Bundesliga signing from the last three Premier League seasons, not including the 2025 January transfer window.

Success story Ilkay Gundogan and disappointment Henrikh Mkhitaryan do not feature in this list, because every player to move to the Premier League from the Bundesliga would be excessive, unnecessary, and way too much work.

54) Jean-Kevin Augustin (Leeds)
Arguably the worst transfer of all time, this one.

Leeds signed Augustin on loan when they were in the Championship, including an obligation to buy if they were promoted. They were promoted, but due to the Covid pandemic, not until June, which was apparently past the deadline for meeting that obligation. They tried to wiggle their way out of paying the transfer fee but this one went to court, which did not go Leeds’ way.

They ended up paying £40million for a player who played 48 minutes for them. Big yikes.

53) Giovanni Reyna (Nottingham Forest)
Forest signed Reyna on loan for the second half of last season and he didn’t do much at all.

52) Jadon Sancho (Manchester United)
Every time Sancho gets a mention on this website, it tends to be for all the wrong reasons. Unless you are Lewis Oldham, who backed the £73m Red Devils flop to be Erik ten Hag’s biggest success story.

After being chased by the club for over a year, Sancho became a shell of the man who notched 89 goal contributions for Borussia Dortmund.

Sancho is currently on loan at Chelsea, who will make the transfer permanent for £25m at the end of the season.

51) Ozan Kabak (Norwich)
After an underwhelming loan spell with Liverpool (more on that soon) Kabak managed to get another bite at the Premier League cherry. This time around, he helped Norwich get relegated.

50) Milot Rashica (Norwich)
Norwich signed Kosovan forward Rashica in the same summer they brought in Kabak on loan. He joined after a decent spell at Werder Bremen, but he could not adapt to life in England and joined Galatasaray on loan in September 2022 and permanently a year later after making four Championship appearances. In the Premier League, Rashica scored once in 31 matches.

49) Kevin Mbabu (Fulham)
This was a bizarre one. Fulham signed Mbabu for a measly £4m and barely played him.

48) Naouirou Ahamada (Crystal Palace)
We are not convinced this guy actually exists. He somehow has 31 appearances for Palace and is now on loan at Stade Rennes, whom he has played three times for this season.

47) Sasa Kalajdzic (Wolves)
You have to sympathise with the big Austrian, who has been injured for the vast majority of his Wolves career.

46) Omar Richards (Nottingham Forest)
Richards is currently on loan at sister club Rio Ave and has made zero appearances for Forest.

45) Wout Weghorst (Burnley)
For a while, Burnley couldn’t be relegated. It was impossible. Their survival was inevitable. That was until big Wout Weghorst came along. Two goals in 20 league matches succumbed the Clarets to a year in the Championship. Twelve million quid the big Dutchman cost them.

44) Ozan Kabak (Liverpool)
Kabak received more laughs than praise during his time at Anfield.

43) Mahmoud Dahoud (Brighton)
A free transfer many had big expectations of, Dahoud struggled in his six months in the Premier League before being loaned out to Stuttgart. He was sold to Eintracht Frankfurt last summer.

42) Eric da Silva Moreira (Nottingham Forest)
Moreira is only 18 years and has barely played for Forest this season.

41) Niclas Fullkrug (West Ham)
Fullkrug is a terrific Bundesliga striker but simply not suited to the Premier League. That doesn’t stop him from being the most West Ham signing West Ham have ever made.

40) Moussa Diaby (Aston Villa)
After an underwhelming debut season, Diaby jetted off to the Saudi Arabian sunset.

Diaby joined with high expectations and started well before being outshone by and dropped thanks to the form of another former Bayer Leverkusen player in Leon Bailey.

39) Ademola Lookman (Fulham)
Lookman, like Kabak, features twice on this list. Also like the Turkish defender, both transfers from the Bundesliga were loans. The winger didn’t do much for Fulham and cost them a loan fee, whereas he did not for Leicester and had a more memorable spell at the King Power, which is why this move ranks a bit lower.

His incredible exploits at Atalanta make both moves look even worse.

38) Orel Mangala (Nottingham Forest)
Mangala joined from Stuttgart and managed two goal contributions in 27 league matches in 2022/23. Forest got themselves out of a PSR pickle by selling him to Lyon, who gave him to Everton for the season.

37) Ademola Lookman (Leicester)
Spent 2021/22 with Leicester before returning to Atalanta. Lookman scored six in 26 Premier League games.

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36) Jordan Beyer (Burnley)
Burnley bought Beyer from Borussia Monchengladbach after a solid season on loan, helping them earn promotion up to the Premier League. The jump was too big for most at Turf Moor, including near enough all of their new signings.

35) Armel Bella-Kotchap (Southampton)
The young German impressed us early on after making the move from Vfl Bochum. After a strong start, the wheels fell off the Southampton bus and they were relegated.

That early promise is gone and Bella-Kotchap has played once and been an unused substitute three times in 2024/25.

34) Georginio Rutter (Leeds)
His Championship form was excellent but not enough to get Leeds promoted. His signing in January 2023 was a big mistake in their bid to stay up. Brighton signed the Frenchman last summer and he is doing pretty well down south.

33) Marc Roca (Leeds)
Struggled whenever he didn’t have Tyler Adams next to him and could not adapt to the physicality of Our League. Roca is decent enough on the ball and probably did just about enough to justify the £8m Leeds paid to sign him.

32) Brajan Gruda (Brighton)
Brighton paid £25m for the young German, who has occasionally shown why in his first six months in England.

31) Jacob Bruun Larsen (Burnley)
Larsen scored seven goals in 36 Burnley matches during his one-year loan from Hoffenheim. Not bad.

30) Josh Sargent (Norwich)
American international Sargent would be next to Rashica on this list if it wasn’t for a decent Championship season in a dysfunctional team. Norwich went down in 2021/22 as Sargent scored two in 26 Premier League appearances, both of which came in the same game. 42 goal involvements in two-and-a-half Championship seasons means all is far from being lost.

29) Timo Werner (Chelsea)
The huge £50m fee Chelsea paid to sign Werner was a waste of money.

28) Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool)
Szoboszlai has been really disappointing. We think he is getting off lightly as well.

27) Konstantinos Mavropanos (West Ham)
Great for Stuttgart, average at best and arguably getting worse for West Ham.

26) Wataru Endo (Liverpool)
Hard to knock £15m for a player of Endo’s quality; he is a solid rotational option.

25) Kevin Schade (Brentford)
Brentford paid around £20m to sign the 21-year-old from Freiburg and after a difficult spell with injuries, Schade has kicked on. He has five goals and two assists in the Premier League this season and is reportedly a Borussia Dortmund target.

24) Christopher Nkunku (Chelsea)
This guy joined with huge expectations and for a respectable £51m but injuries made his debut season hard to judge. Now he is fully fit, he can’t get in Enzo Maresca’s starting XI – unless it is in the Europa Conference League.

23) Leon Bailey (Aston Villa)
Signed from Bundesliga giants Bayer Leverkusen for a cool £25m in 2021, Bailey failed to hit the heights expected of him in his first year for Villa. Last year, we said ‘2023/24 is his last chance to prove himself at Villa Park’ and he did just that. Bailey was fantastic.

22) Mark Flekken (Brentford)
Flekken has been fine for Brentford. Not outstanding but not bad by any stretch.

21) Robin Koch (Leeds)
Koch is decent in the air, comfortable on the ball, versatile, rarely injured, but not the most convincing defender in the world.

20) Demarai Gray (Everton)
Everton got Gray for a measly £1.5m and he did not live up to that price tag. In a good way, this time.

19) Maxence Lacroix (Crystal Palace)
Replacing Joachim Andersen was always going to be difficult but Palace have done a pretty decent job with Lacroix.

18) Moussa Niakhate (Nottingham Forest)
One of 400 signings made by Nottingham Forest before 2022/23, Niakhate left Mainz – where he was captain – to take on his first challenge in England.

Niakhate was pretty solid for Forest but not a £27m player, we don’t think. That is what they got for him from Lyon, making it £47m in total for him and Mangala. Good going, that. Especially when you consider Niakhate only cost Forest around £8m.

17) Chris Richards (Crystal Palace)
Richards joined Palace for around £10m in July 2022 and has been pretty solid whenever called upon.

16) Tyler Adams (Leeds)
Leeds made some questionable signings before their relegation season, but Tyler Adams was a brilliant one. For every Brenden Aaronson, there is an Adams and Willy Gnonto, as the famous saying goes.

The American international left for Bournemouth after his single year at Leeds made it clear that he is far too good for the Championship.

15) Matthijs de Ligt (Manchester United)
We don’t think De Ligt has been that bad for Man United this season. He did have a mad few minutes at Anfield, mind.

14) Marcel Sabitzer (Manchester United)
Signed on loan for the second half of 22/23, Sabitzer filled a gap for Erik ten Hag and barely put a foot wrong. His form at Borussia Dortmund and for Austria at Euro 2024 will have been hard for Man Utd to stomach. They could have had him for £15m!

13) Kai Havertz (Chelsea)
Struggled when he joined, then scored the winning goal in a Champions League final, became even worse, but left for £65m. That goal and the fact Chelsea recouped the vast majority of the £72m for Havertz sees him as high as 13th.

12) Noussair Mazraoui (Manchester United)
We still can’t believe Man United made a good decision in the transfer market. Mazraoui is brilliant.

11) Stefan Ortega (Manchester City)
City landed Ortega on a free transfer in the summer of 2022. As far as back-up goalkeepers go, the German is one of the best in the world.

10) Taiwo Awoniyi (Nottingham Forest)
“Taiwo Awoniyi will score two league goals all season”. That is what this idiot said in our 2022/23 pre-season predictions.

Awoniyi proved me wrong, scoring a very respectable 10 in 27. Six of those came in the last four Premier League matches of the season and went a very long way to keeping Forest in the top flight. In those final four fixtures, without former Union Berlin striker Awoniyi’s goals, the Reds would have got one point. They hugely benefited from his goals and picked up eight from a possible 12.

Those goals are the reason why Forest are unlikely title contenders and not in the Championship this season.

9) Hee-chan Hwang (Wolves)
You know what you will get from Hwang, even if he has been subpar this season.

8) Thiago (Liverpool)
Thiago was an outstanding technician and has decided to call it a day on his playing career last summer after another year riddled with injuries.

Despite his fitness issues, Thiago was still a good signing; especially considering the Reds only paid £20m to sign him from Bayern Munich.

7) Jean-Philippe Mateta (Crystal Palace)
Mateta cost close to £10m in January 2022 and took a while to get going, but when he did, bloody hell, he has been difficult to stop.

He is loving life under Oliver Glasner, finishing the 23/24 season with 16 league goals after scoring two in his first 19 appearances in 22/23 and eight in 77 in total.

6) Ryan Gravenberch (Liverpool)
Recency bias? Maybe a little…

Liverpool wanted Martin Zubimendi last summer and after failing to convince him to leave Real Sociedad, they stuck with Gravenberch. He has been one of the best deep-lying midfielders in Europe this term.

5) Micky van de Ven (Tottenham)
Van de Ven’s pace is frightening. He can defend as well, which helps. Those hamstrings though…

4) Ibrahima Konate (Liverpool)
Like Thiago, Konate does have his injury troubles, and like Thiago, that has impacted his position in our ranking.

Nevertheless, when he is fit Konate forms a terrific partnership with Virgil van Dijk. £36m was a bargain.

3) Josko Gvardiol (Manchester City)
Big, big money for Gvardiol (£77m) but he will be worth it in the long run.

2) Manuel Akanji (Manchester City)
Nobody really expected much from Akanji when he joined from Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund but he quickly proved he is a top-class defender.

The Swiss international has played superbly as a central defender and even more impressively as a left-back.

1) Erling Haaland (Manchester City)
City should do business with Dortmund more often. Akanji has been excellent, Ilkay Gundogan’s £21m move in 2016 turned out to be one of the best signings in the club’s history, and Haaland has been… ridiculously impressive.

Signed to win City the Champions League, he did just that at the first attempt as his new team completed the Treble. A whopping 52 goals in 53 games in his debut season was a simply outrageous return.

He now has one of the biggest contracts in world football and is tied down for another 115 months. Cheeky.

👉 The ridiculous stats of Erling Haaland: 80 Premier League goals at 21 Premier League grounds