Continuing on our exploration through the weird world of football transfers during this summer transfer window, having recently looked at 7 notable double-signings, today we explore players who have been used as makeweights in transfers in the past.
A makeweight, in footballing parlance for those of you who don’t know, is a term used to describe a player who is transferred to a team as a more valuable player travels in the opposite direction. The idea is that the primary club gets their preferred target and saves themselves some money they would otherwise have had to spend on the player, whilst the secondary club potentially gets a like-for-like replacement for their departing player or at least brings someone in in a problematic position to soften the blow.
For example, say if Barcelona wanted to sign Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool valued him at £150 million, they might also consider an offer of £100 million plus Samuel Umtiti, if they deemed the Frenchman to be worth £50 million. That is a purely academic example, please don’t start analysing the validity or likelihood of that deal or the fees involved in the comments, and I’m well-aware that me telling you not to just means it is far more likely to happen…
Right, here are 7 footballers who have acted as makeweights in transfers:
7. Keith Gillespie – Newcastle United
Manchester United winger Keith Gillespie races away from John Sheridan of Sheffield Wednesday during an FA Premiership match between Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester United at…
Keith Gillespie is a classic example of a makeweight in a transfer. Back in January 1995, Andy Cole was one of the most prolific marksmen in the English game. He had scored 56 goals in 73 games over the last 18 months for Newcastle United, and Alex Ferguson was determined to bring him to Old Trafford. £7 million was Newcastle’s price tag, but Fergie managed to get his man for £6 million plus the £1 million-rated Northern Irish international Keith Gillespie.
Even the £6 million fee meant Cole set a British record transfer fee, exceeding the amount Tottenham had received for Paul Gascoigne three years earlier. Whilst he was expensive, Cole was well worth the money, bagging 121 goals in 275 games for United and forming a formidable strike partnership with Dwight Yorke.
Gillespie was only 19 at the time of the transfer, and he went on to register 278 Premier League appearances, as well as winning 86 caps for Northern Ireland. A brilliant dribbler of the ball with searing pace, 113 of those 278 appearances came during a three year spell with Newcastle, and Gillespie went on to play for the likes of Blackburn, Leicester and Sheffield United.
6. Matias Almeyda and Sergio Conceicao – Parma
It speaks volumes about Lazio’s determination to sign Hernan Crespo in the year 2000 that they were willing not just to make him the most expensive footballer of all time at over €35 million, but also to part with two outstanding footballers in the forms of Matias Almeyda and Sergio Conceicao. Crespo had been sensational for Parma, and although he scored prolifically for Lazio too, they could only recoup €26 million when they were forced to sell him to Inter Milan due to financial trouble two seasons later.
Matias Almeyda was already a seasoned pro by the time of his transfer to Parma as a makeweight in the Crespo deal. A tireless defensive midfield runner who won 35 caps for Argentina, he had won a Serie A title alongside Conceicao at Lazio the previous season. Lazio missed his work rate in screening their defence, and Almeyda went on to spend two seasons with Parma and a further two with Inter Milan.
Current Porto boss Sergio Conceicao was a dominant wide player who was a quick and strong runner with excellent feet. He was 26 when he headed to Parma as part of that Crespo deal, and he had previously won a trio of Primeira Liga titles as a youngster at Porto. Now the manager of the Porto first team, where he added another league title in 2018, Coneicao won 56 caps for Portugal and later returned to Lazio for a brief time.
5. Nemanja Matic – Benfica
Nemanja Matic of Manchester United clashes with Cesar Azpilicueta of Chelsea as he wins the ball during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Chelsea FC at Old Trafford on…
Chelsea first signed Nemanja Matic for £1.5 million way back in 2009. He played just three games for the club before being sold to Benfica as a makeweight in a deal which brought young Brazilian centre-back David Luiz to the club in 2011. As well as Matic, Chelsea paid Benfica €25 million for Luiz. During three seasons with Benfica, Matic became a really dominant central midfielder, winning two Serbian Footballer of the Year awards and one Primeira Liga Player of the Year award.
Jose Mourinho brought the big Serbian midfielder back to Stamford Bridge for the same €25 million fee they’d paid Benfica for David Luiz three years earlier. That same summer, Luiz himself left the club, although the club did receive an eye-watering £50 million for the somewhat error-prone Brazilian international. Luiz, like Matic, later returned to the Bridge in 2016 for £34 million, where the two spent a season playing alongside each other before Mourinho took Matic with him to Manchester United for between £35-40 million.
Eight years on from Matic initially acting as a makeweight in that deal between Chelsea and Benfica for David Luiz, he has had an impressive career, most notably including two Premier League titles with the Blues. He had a difficult time at Manchester United last season though, and it remains to be seen whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer really fancies him in the heart of his midfield.
4. Alec Fraser – Bradford Park Avenue
Included as maybe the earliest example of a footballer acting as a makeweight in a transfer, I must apologise for the fact that we have no images in our database of Alec Fraser, although it will soon become clear why. Fraser was born in 1883, and retired before the start of WWI, that’s why… A talented forward who was born in Inverness, Fraser – like a lot of Scottish players – first played in the Football League for Newcastle United.
It was his move from Fulham to Bradford Park Avenue in 1908, however, the same year that Inter Milan were founded, which earns him a place in this seven. The player heading in the opposite direction was fellow forward Harry Brown, who had impressed at Park Avenue in the Southern League.
Brown scored 21 goals in 53 games over the course of two seasons at Fulham, before spending a further three years at Southampton. There aren’t great records of Fraser’s goal scoring record, but he did go on to score prolifically for Darlington after leaving Park Avenue in 1909.
3. Davide Santon & Nicolo Zaniolo – Roma
The second double-makeweight signing in this seven, both Davide Santon and Nicolo Zaniolo joined Roma from Inter Milan as part of a deal that saw Radja Nainggolan head in the opposite direction in 2018. Santon had been very highly-rated in his early days at Inter, earning comparisons with the likes of Paolo Maldini and Giacinto Facchetti, but it was Nicolo Zaniolo who was an Italian youth international at the time of the transfers.
And it is the decision to let Zaniolo go that looks to have come back to bite Inter Milan. Although Nainggolan is one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the world, he is in his 30’s now, whilst Zaniolo is just 19. He will turn 20 at the start of July, but he was undoubtedly one of the finest teenagers in the world game at the Stadio Olimpico last season, picking up the Serie A Best Young Player of the Year award and winning his first caps for the Italian national team.
The tall and technical midfielder is already being valued at more than £60 million by Roma according to certain reports, which isn’t bad going for a player the club signed whilst receiving €24 million for Radja Nainggolan. Santon has been decent for Roma, but Zaniolo was the real coup from this deal.
2. William Gallas – Arsenal
William Gallas pictured inside the photo booth prior to The Best FIFA Football Awards at Royal Festival Hall on September 24, 2018 in London, England.
A makeweight in one of the most controversial transfers of the Premier League era, William Gallas was a terrific footballer in his own right. That transfer, as I’m sure 90% of you know, was Ashley Cole’s move from Arsenal to Chelsea. Seventh in our list of the seven greatest left-backs of all time, and if you are a new subscriber to this channel please do go back and watch our GOAT series if you are into that kind of thing, Ashley Cole had been pushing for a transfer when he finally got his move to Stamford Bridge in 2006.
Cole won nine trophies in eight seasons with the Blues, going on to become England’s most capped full-back of all time, before stints at Roma, LA Galaxy and Derby County. Gallas was just on the cusp of turning 29 when he joined Arsenal, as part of a deal which also saw the Gunners pocket £5 million, and he spent four seasons at the Emirates.
Gallas made himself about as popular with the Arsenal fans as the man they dubbed ‘Cashley’ himself when he left in 2010, joining North London rivals Tottenham on a free transfer. In doing so, Gallas became the first player in history to play senior official fixtures for Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. Following three seasons with Spurs, Gallas went played 15 games for Perth Glory in Australia before hanging up his boots.
0. Honourable Mentions
I’ll be honest with you all on this one, I was pretty happy with my seven when I drafted them up that I didn’t go too much further when it came to looking for honourable mentions. So like any good primary school teacher who doesn’t know the answer to a question, I’ll set it as homework for you good people of YouTube to leave your suggestions in the comments.
There are a few examples I can think of off the top of my head, such as Steve Morison joining Leeds United as a makeweight in Norwich City’s signing of Luciano Becchio, Anfield favourite Steve Finnan’s Merseyside departure as a makeweight in the deal which brought Albert Riera to the club from Espanyol, and lastly Fraizer Campbell’s loan move to Tottenham Hotspur following a brilliant season at Hull City which acted as a makeweight in the Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United deal.
Right, those are my three, feel free to share your own in the comments, also let us know if you have any good video suggestions, like the suggestions you’d like to see so I know what you all want from us and obviously make sure you’re subscribed because not doing so would be simply reckless, feckless and deeply miss-guided when this channel is putting out what can only be described as world class content on a daily basis…
Okay, and here’s your top spot…
1. Samuel Eto’o to Inter Milan
Samuel Eto’o of Barcelona salutes the crowd as he celebrates scoring his side’s sixth goal during the La Liga match between Barcelona and Malaga at the Camp Nou Stadium on March 22, 2009…
Inter Milan make two appearances in this seven, and whilst the decision to let Nicolo Zaniolo go now looks more than a little dubious, their entry in top spot proved to be a masterstroke. Samuel Eto’o had been one of the most prolific and effective marksmen in Europe for five seasons at Barcelona, bagging 130 goals in 199 games, and he was still only 27 back in 2009. That is the year that he left Barca to join Inter as a makeweight in Pep Guardiola’s pursuit of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Both Eto’o and Ibrahimovic are among the finest forwards of their generation, but whilst both scored goals for fun at the Camp Nou, both struggled once Guardiola started to play Lionel Messi through the middle. When Inter sold Ibrahimovic to Barca, not only did they get one of the best strikers on the planet, they also pocketed a cool £59 million.
Eto’o only actually spent two seasons at the San Siro, but they were two incredible campaigns. He won a historic treble in 2010, the first of its kind in the Italian game, bagging 16 goals in the process. He had a greatly improved individual campaign the following season, scoring 37 goals in 53 games, adding a Coppa Italia to his bulging trophy cabinet. Eto’o left for the then-free spending Anzhi in Russia in 2011, as Inter pocketed a further €25 million.
Ibrahimovic stayed for just a season at Barcelona, falling out – as Samuel Eto’o had – with head coach Pep Guardiola. Both players, aged 37 and 38 respectively, are still playing now. Following stints with Chelsea, Everton, Antalyaspor and Konyaspor, Eto’o now plays for Qatar SC, whilst Ibrahimovic went on to star for AC Milan, PSG and Manchester United, and is once again proving a huge hit in the MLS with La Galaxy now.
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