Where does Sunderland’s Granit Xhaka rank in the all-time best signings by newly-promoted clubs?
Sunderland midfielder Granit Xhaka is being talked up as the best signing ever made by a newly-promoted Premier League club. He’s certainly right up there, but is he really the very best?
This debate has inspired us to have a go at ranking the top 10 signings for newly-promoted clubs, featuring fan favourites at Brighton, Stoke, Fulham, Wolves, Newcastle and Leeds United.
Here are the top 10 signings for newly-promoted clubs in Premier League history.
10. Yoane Wissa (Brentford)
Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo fired Thomas Frank’s Bees to promotion in 2020-21, while summer signing Wissa added to their stacked attack.
The striker’s role in Brentford’s long-running survival almost goes under the radar in comparison to Mbeumo and Toney, but he’s their record Premier League goalscorer and also earned a healthy profit-generating, big-money move away.
He’s yet to play a minute for Newcastle United, and Brentford probably made the right decision in cashing in at the right time, but he was a very useful player in those first four years at the Gtech.
9. Abdoulaye Faye (Stoke City)
Not to be confused with relative flop Amdy Faye, who the Potters also signed after going up in 2008.
Yeah, yeah, Ricardo Fuller, Rory Delap, long throws and all that. Halcyon Barclays days.
Ultimately, though, Stoke’s comfortably midtable finish in their first Premier League campaign was built on a bedrock of a rock-solid defence, marshalled expertly by the imperious Senegal international Faye.
8. Cheick Tiote (Newcastle United)
Fresh from winning the Eredivisie title under Schteve McClaren, the Ivorian midfielder joined the Magpies fresh from their one-year sojourn in the Championship in 2010.
That goal against Arsenal has forever enshrined Tiote’s place in Tyneside footballing folklore, and for a while he was one of the poster boys for Newcastle’s unerringly excellent recruitment under chief scout Graham Carr in the early 2010s.
Rest in peace.
7. Pascal Gross (Brighton)
Brighton’s rise has been steady.
They’ve not always been the club regularly bloodying the noses of the ‘big six’, seemingly adding four new wonderkids you’ve never heard of to their squad every window.
Before the progressive football of Graham Potter and high-intensity pressing favoured by Roberto De Zerbi, there was the sensible pragmatism of Chris Hughton.
Along that journey, few – if any – were as good or important as Gross, an inspired pick-up from German minnows Ingolstadt.
He spent seven years at the Amex as the Seagulls consolidated their top-flight status and is now a regular Germany international who regularly plays under Champions League floodlights at Borussia Dortmund.
6. Esteban Cambiasso (Leicester City)
From one legendary Champions League-winning midfielder to another, before N’Golo Kante, there was Cambiasso.
We loved watching the experienced Argentinian midfielder in the Foxes’ breathless great escape season in 2014-15.
One year was enough.
READ: A tribute to Esteban Cambiasso and his final stand with Leicester City
5. Joao Palhinha (Fulham)
The limitations in Palhinha’s passing game have arguably been exposed at Bayern Munich and Tottenham, but that was less of an issue at Fulham.
A tackling machine, the Portugal international’s industriousness was integral to Marco Silva’s Cottagers re-establishing their place as a solid Premier League outfit.
Undoubtedly their best player those first couple of years back up, and always destined to move to a top European club.
4. Raul Jimenez (Wolves)
Wolves walked the Championship with 99 points in 2017-18, boasting a squad full of players that had no business playing in the second tier – from Ruben Neves to Diogo Jota to Matt Doherty, even a young Morgan Gibbs-White.
Free-spending and ambitious, they were always going to add more star power to their squad after going up.
Willy Boly, Rui Patricio, Joao Moutinho and Adama Traore were all excellent signings, but we can’t look past Raul Jimenez – originally signed on loan from Benfica – as the standout.
The Mexico international fired the newly-promoted side straight to European football with 17 goals in all competitions. Genuinely one of the best centre-forwards in the country before that head injury.
3. Edwin van der Sar (Fulham)
Ajax. Juventus. Fulham. Manchester United.
The Dutch ‘keeper’s four-year stint at Craven Cottage sticks out like a sore thumb in his career path.
“It was a kind of jostle between goalies at the top clubs, but I was left out. I then spoke to Ajax, to Liverpool and to Dortmund,” recalled in an interview with FourFourTwo.
“The latter two wanted to wait until the end of the summer transfer window. I didn’t want to be hanging on for that long.
“Fulham had some big ambitions – they had just won the First Division title to go into the Premier League and were signing a lot of new players.
“I just wanted to play some football. I consulted Louis van Gaal, who was the Netherlands’ national coach at the time, and he was really positive about the move.
“I saw it as maybe taking one small step back in order to then try to make several steps forward further down the line.”
And that’s exactly how things worked out.
Van der Sar made it back to the very top after leaving Fulham, winning four Premier League titles and playing in three Champions League finals during his veteran years with Manchester United.
2. Granit Xhaka (Sunderland)
We’re still left scratching our heads at how Sunderland have pulled this one off.
After some endlessly frustrating early years at Arsenal, the penny eventually dropped and in his late twenties, Xhaka transformed into one of the best midfielders in Europe.
The Switzerland international was a standout for Arsenal as they first began challenging for the Premier League title, and was even better in Bayer Leverkusen’s historic domestic double unbeaten campaign in 2023-24.
Xhaka could easily be playing for an elite Champions League club, and instead he’s bossing midfield battles on Wearside. Quite possibly the best player to represent the Black Cats in the 21st century.
1. Raphinha (Leeds United)
Leeds were a sensationally thrilling team built in Marcelo Bielsa’s image, but Raphinha added that bit of stardust that took them up another level.
The Brazilian left the promise of Champions League football with Rennes to join the Yorkshire outfit, fresh from their 16-year exile out of the Premier League.
That proved an inspired decision, as he used the platform of the Premier League to get Brazil call-ups and a dream move to Barcelona, where he’s blossomed into a bona fide Ballon d’Or contender.
Leeds made a solid profit, although in hindsight £50million feels like a rip-off.
In the first year he inspired them to a ninth-place finish, just two points behind Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, and in year two he was near singlehandedly responsible for survival amid Bielsa’s system breaking down and Jesse Marsch’s eternal wisdom placing him on long throws.
Surely the most gifted footballer to light up Elland Road since their Champions League glory days over two decades ago. How Daniel Farke could do with a player like that now.
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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the 10 best newly-promoted clubs in Premier League history?