The 10 biggest La Liga signings from Premier League clubs & how they fared
La Liga clubs have regularly owned some of the biggest names in world football, with the quality of football in the league some of the best in the world.
A number of their biggest stars have been imported from elsewhere, with the Premier League to La Liga route one walked by many of the world’s very best.
Reports suggest Trent Alexander-Arnold will be the next, swapping Liverpool for Real Madrid, so we have looked into the 10 highest-value players he’ll be following to La Liga, and how they fared.
10. Conor Gallagher
Gallagher had seemingly become a vital member of the Chelsea side in his final season of the club, with the academy product having the best season of his career in terms of goals and assists, while he often wore the captain’s armband.
But as a homegrown player, with the Blues looking to make pure profit on the books, they sold the midfielder for approximately £35million, to Atletico Madrid.
He has seemed a perfect fit for Diego Simeone’s side, though he has rotated with other midfielders. Gallagher scored an important Champions League goal against Real Madrid, during a round of 16 game in which Atletico were heartbreakingly beaten on penalties.
With three goals and five assists so far from the midfield, while he has not overwhelmed, Gallagher has been a useful signing.
9. Ferran Torres
Barcelona paid approximately £46million for Torres from Manchester City in 2022, and he has never really been able to justify that price.
Prior to this season, the winger had never scored more than 10 goals in a single campaign for the La Liga giants.
Of his 145 games at Barcelona, Torres has started almost exactly half (73), which shows the coaches he has played under have been aware that while he can impact games, he’s not the very best asset available to them.
8. Raphinha
Raphinha was not already a megastar prior to his move to Barcelona, and in terms of moves to big La Liga clubs, his was perhaps surrounded with the most unknown. The Brazilian had not been a big name at Sporting CP or Rennes, but had come into his own at Leeds.
In his first season in the Premier League, Raphinha was directly involved in 15 goals, and in his second, he had a hand in 14 goals. He was one of the main reasons the Whites weren’t relegated in 2021/22, and caught the eye of Barca.
His time in Spain initially, while not wholly underwhelming, could perhaps be categorised as a little bit slow. He scored 10 goals and assisted 12 in his first campaign, and followed that up with another 10 goals and 13 assists the following season.
But in 2024/25, after reports that Barca could sell him in order to raise much-needed funds, Raphinha has exploded into life. At the point of writing, he has 27 goals and 20 assists to his name in the campaign.
If Barca are to win La Liga or the Champions League this season – Raphinha has 11 goals and five assists in the latter – the winger will be the main driver towards that success, having become a superstar this season.
7. Diego Costa
Costa played for Atletico Madrid on a few different occasions. He had already left once before coming back in 2010 by the time he moved to Chelsea in 2014, and four years later, he was back, with Atleti reportedly paying £57million for him.
In his final season before leaving for the Premier League, Costa scored 36 goals, and in three seasons at Stamford Bridge, he racked up 59 goals and 21 assists.
As such, Atletico surely thought they’d have been getting a top striker back, but Costa struggled to adapt to life back in Spain, a transition not helped by injuries.
The forward played 81 games in four seasons after his return, but scored just 19 goals in that time. He was released in 2021, and that he spent months without a club highlights how underwhelming he had been.
6. Luis Suarez
Barcelona had seen enough from Suarez in just two and a half seasons at Liverpool to sign him for an initially reported fee of £75million. That he’d move onto bigger things was unsurprising after notching 31 goals and 13 assists in his final season in the Premier League.
He shattered that tally in his second season at Barca, scoring a remarkable 40 La Liga goals, along with 18 assists. Across all competitions that season, Suarez scored 54 goals and assisted 24.
In his whole spell at Camp Nou, the Uruguayan forward scored 195 goals and assisted 113 in 283 games. He won the Champions League once – the last time Barca won it, in 2014/15 – and won the La Liga title on four occasions, before doing so again with Atletico Madrid in 2020/21.
Already an elite forward with Liverpool, Suarez’s spell at Barcelona cemented him as one of the very best strikers in the modern era.
5. Julian Alvarez
One of the most recent players to move between the Premier League and La Liga, Alvarez swapped Premier League champions Manchester City for La Liga title hopefuls Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2024.
While he had been a regular fixture in his final season at City, the talent around him meant the play did not flow through him the way it is at Atletico.
He already has 23 goals and five assists this season, including eight direct goal contributions in the Champions League. So far, the move looks a positive one for Alvarez.
4. Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo’s was undoubtedly the best move from the Premier League to La Liga in history. He broke new ground with a transfer worth approximately £80million from Manchester United. The previous world-record transfer – Zinedine Zidane to Real – had stood for eight years.
Ronaldo was one of the most devastating forwards in the world for his entire spell at Real, scoring 450 goals and assisting 131 in 438 games.
He won the Ballon d’Or in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017 while he was a Real player, and also scooped 16 team honours during his time at the club, including five Champions Leagues.
3. Gareth Bale
At the time of his transfer to Real Madrid for approximately £85million, Bale’s was a world-record move. He’d transformed himself from a struggling full-back to a devastating forward in the blink of an eye at Tottenham, and continued to impress out wide for Real.
In all competitions during his first season at the club, Bale scored 22 goals and provided 19 assists. That included six goals and four assists in a triumphant Champions League campaign, including a goal in the final. Bale would win five Champions Leagues with Real, as well as three La Liga titles, among a number of other honours.
Over the course of seven seasons, he scored 106 goals and assisted 67 times. While he slowed towards the back end, and was allowed to return to Tottenham on loan as a result, his spell at the La Liga giants should be categorised as a big success.
2. Eden Hazard
Hazard failed immensely in trying to replicate the form he had shown at Chelsea after a move to Real Madrid totalling £130million after add-ons.
One of the most technically gifted players in the history of the Premier League, the Belgian capped off his spell at Stamford Bridge with 21 goals and 17 assists in his final season.
He failed to match that single-season total in 76 games across his entire Real career. Hazard kicked things off with a slow campaign including just one goal and seven assists.
That he never played 20 La Liga games in a single season – partly owing to a spate of injury problems – showed how much Hazard struggled, and he retired at just 32 years of age, having played just 10 games in his final season.
QUIZ: Can you name every player Real Madrid have signed from the Premier League?
1. Philippe Coutinho
The most expensive player ever signed by a La Liga club, Barcelona spent an astonishing £142million to prise attacking-midfielder Coutinho from Liverpool.
At Anfield, he had become an iconic figure, having a direct hand in 97 goals in 201 games. His spell at Barcelona failed to live up to the standard he had set for himself, and the massive value of his transfer.
After 13 direct goal contributions in his first 18 La Liga games, Coutinho slowed with only seven in the 32 he played the following season. He was then loaned out to Bayern Munich, where he again found his feet, but never managed to show form again at Barcelona.
The Brazilian was allowed to leave for Aston Villa, after only 39 goal contributions in 106 games at Barca.
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