Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea and why this is a UK transfer record like no other

When Enzo Fernandez completed his €121m (£106m, $131m) move from Benfica to Chelsea on deadline day, Jack Grealish passed the baton.

At the age of 22, Fernandez is at the center of a record British transfer that makes him the Premier League’s most expensive player and a spotlight on him that some have handled better than others.

“That record fee was a very heavy burden,” said Andy Cole when asked about his £7million transfer from Newcastle United to Manchester United in 1995. “It bothered me. A lot.”

The numbers have risen sharply since those days, so much so that we are now in the nine-figure transfer age, with Grealish becoming the first player to join a British club for £100m when he joined Manchester City from Aston Villa Summer 2021.

Grealish says it was “annoying” that the fee was a constant talking point on the back of his appearances for City. “The price tag on my head, as soon as you don’t get them (goals and assists) people start talking and they start doubting you,” he said.

Alan Shearer, on the other hand, “absolutely loved” being the most expensive footballer to sign for a British club and told The Athletic that his £15m transfer from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle United in 1996 made him special “10 feet tall” felt.

Shearer’s name appears twice on an odd list when working through the record transfer fees paid by British clubs in recent decades – Chris Sutton one year, Dennis Bergkamp the next.

The Athletic have previously written about the pressure that comes with a record-breaking transfer.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect, considering the Premier League has been inundated with money for so long, is that this is only the sixth time in the last 20 years that the UK transfer record has been broken.

If I were to tell you then that the four record deals ahead of Grealish Paul Pogba (Juventus to Manchester United, £89m), Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea, £50m), Robinho (Real Madrid to Manchester City, £32.5m pounds) and Andriy was Shevchenko (AC Milan to Chelsea, £30.6m), the words poisoned chalice would probably come to mind.

Fernandez has time on his side to change that narrative. Time because of the length of contract he has signed at Stamford Bridge (eight and a half years) but also because of his age – and that alongside his playing experience means some shift in the profile of record UK transfers in recent times.

Grealish was 25 at the time of his record move, Torres 26, Robinho 24, Shevchenko 29, Veron 26, Shearer 25. Although Pogba was 23 when he returned to United in 2016, he had already made 178 appearances for Juventus.

By and large, all of these players were nearing their prime at the time of their transfer (Shevchenko was probably the other side).

Fernandez, on the other hand, celebrated his 22nd birthday just two weeks ago and has only made 70 career league appearances (17 for Benfica). He’s clearly an exceptional talent, but under the circumstances it’s also a breathtaking sum.

Indeed, it’s remarkable to think we’re even talking about Fernandez in those terms, considering he joined Benfica from River Plate for €14m just seven months ago – as football investments go (actually, you do that with any investment ). , this transfer takes a few beats.

There’s a story about Fernandez in the mixed zone at the Worlds that provides a measure of how far he’s come in such a short amount of time. A reporter stopped the midfielder after Argentina beat Poland in their last group game and asked: “Could this be Enzo Perez’s World Cup?”

“I’m Enzo Fernandez,” came the reply.

For the record, Enzo Perez is 36, available for around €1.5m according to Transfermarkt and played 90 minutes for River Plate on Sunday.

Mistaken identity aside, the reporter made a good point when he raised the possibility of Fernandez taking center stage at the World Cup. The midfielder’s substitution from the bench against Mexico in the group stage, in just his fifth cap for his country (he only made his debut for Argentina in September), was a turning point in several respects.

Fernandez scored against Mexico, started the next game against Poland and played every minute – 420 of them – for Argentina in the knockout rounds. Indeed, Lionel Scaloni’s midfield was reorganized around Fernandez (alongside Brighton’s Alex Mac Allister and Rodrigo De Paul), who was later named FIFA Young Player of the Tournament.

Now, if hands were rubbed at the Estadio da Luz, where Fernandez had already made an excellent start, Benfica could never have foreseen that the player’s release clause would be fulfilled so soon.

However, this turned out to be the perfect storm: a transfer window on the back of a winter World Cup, a 21-year-old playing out of his skin and walking away with a winner’s medal around his neck, and a new Premier League owner with money to burn and on a mission to make statements.

Incredibly, Fernandez is the 17th player to join Chelsea under Todd Boehly’s ownership with a total cost of around £600million. To put that number in context, it’s £265m more than the previous club’s record single-season spend (Barcelona 2017-18) and accounts for the spend of Boehly’s predecessor in 2003, as Arsenal vice-chairman David Yours, accused of “firing £50 notes at us” by Roman Abramovich, look pretty tame.

Deals that broke the UK transfer record

The adage (which Arsene Wenger used to pound into his Arsenal scouts) is that you should never sign a player on the basis of his World Cup performances. There is a ‘World Cup tax’ – and Chelsea clearly paid that here – but the bigger concern is that a player will not be able to repeat the form he has shown for his country in a small selection of games , to repeat.

Chelsea’s background work on Fernandez will have gone much deeper than what happened in Qatar and it is worth recalling that he was linked with some elite clubs including Juventus and several in the Premier League last summer before he moved to Benfica. However, what no one could have imagined at the time is that Fernandez would be a £100m+ footballer in January.

His age and rapid rise, coupled with his position as a powerful playmaker (despite being an offensive threat, his contribution isn’t defined by goals and assists), make it difficult to gauge Fernandez’s true worth.

All we can say for now is that Chelsea have invested heavily in bringing him to the club – and that number will follow him for some time to come.

(Top Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)