IT is the ultimate pub football debate — who has been the biggest bargain to play in the Premier League?
Jamie Vardy’s decision to leave Leicester at the end of this season has set tongues-a-wagging across this footie-crazy country, especially after Alan Shearer described him as “the best £1millon spent ever”.
Vardy has rewarded Foxes fans 199 times since his bargain-basement move from Fleetwood Town in 2012 and stands only a solitary goal away from a double century.
His performances have made him a Leicester legend and Shearer is absolutely right to mark his fellow Englishman down as one of the ‘steals’ of the modern game.
But the best? Hmmm, you decide, while I throw in a few other candidates.
Only two years after Vardy joined Leicester he was followed by Algerian Riyad Mahrez, who signed for… wait for it … £450,000! Four years later the Foxes sold the winger to Manchester City for £60m.
There must have been something in the East Midlands air at the time because, in 2011, keeper Kasper Schmeichel arrived for £1m and four years later Leicester also snapped up part human, part midfield machine N’Golo Kante for just £5.6m. OK, not quite Vardy, Mahrez and Schmeichel territory, but in football transfer terms, pretty damn cheap.
Elsewhere in the Midlands, Aston Villa got themselves a veritable bargain when they signed John McGinn from Hibernian for less than £3m.
While just down the road at Wolves, the Molineux club snapped up Max Kilman from non-league Maidenhead United for just £40,000 back in 2018.
Plenty of others have also proven to be genuine bargains, including John Stones, who left his hometown club Barnsley for Everton for just £3m in 2013 — and has now won 83 England caps.
Andy Robertson started his career at part-time Queen’s Park, but in 2017 Liverpool paid only £8m for the defender, who has been an integral part of the team which has been successful both at home and abroad.
Another full-back, Everton’s Seamus Coleman, has given remarkable service having signed from Sligo Rovers for £60,000.
And how about Moises Caicedo, who moved to Brighton four years ago for £3.6m and has just won the club’s player of the season award at Chelsea following his big-money switch to Stamford Bridge.
Talking of Chelsea, I know £8m isn’t exactly shopping at Poundland, but Spanish star Cesar Azpilicueta barely missed a game in nearly a decade and captained the club to Champions League, Europa League and Club World Cup victories.
Every manager is keen on snapping up a good deal. Mind you, back in the 1990s the then-Southampton boss Graeme Souness took a gamble on Ballon d’Or winner George Weah’s alleged ‘cousin’.
And Ali Dia has gone down in football folklore.
After coming on as a sub for Saints legend Matt Le Tissier, he was substituted later in the game against Leeds — his only Premier League appearance.
Le Tissier said: “He ran around the pitch like Bambi on ice. It was very embarrassing.”
Dia was immediately released by Southampton and next rocked up at non-league Gateshead, where he claimed he had recently scored for Senegal in a World Cup qualifier… except the African nation had already been knocked out.
And it turned out that Dia was about as much George Weah’s cousin as I am.