Football Features

12 summer transfer deals already confirmed

By Ben Green

Published: 17:50, 15 May 2022

The 2022 summer transfer window in the Premier League opens in June but in truth does it ever really close?

Although players can only officially register with new clubs in the summer months, the pervasive nature of transfer activity is such that rumours, deals and ‘Here We Gos’ never take a break throughout the year.

Some mega business has happened this past week alone — plus an obligatory dose of scattergun speculation — with Erling Haaland confirming his inevitable exit from Borussia Dortmund and becoming the latest big-budget buy from Pep Guardiola.

Although it looks like Manchester City have sought to get ahead of the curve and avoid a fruitless negotiation stand-off with Daniel Levy for months on end, they’re actually relatively late with their dealings, as plenty of business has already been done ahead of the summer.

Here such some of the most prominent transfers already confirmed for the 2022 summer window.

Erling Haaland

  • From: Borussia Dortmund
  • To: Man City
  • Fee: £51.2m

The minute Haaland set foot off the plane from Austria and into Ruhr territory everyone had the same thought on their mind: when will he leave for Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG or City? Indeed that ‘when and not if’ asterisk has followed Haaland around the Westfalenstadion like a bad smell. A player imbued with God-given talents and sinew-stretching defiance, Haaland is a generational talent in every sense and returns to territory his father once roamed. Well, not quite. A former City player, Alfie Haaland, strutted his stuff at Maine Road. Haaland Jr. will be doing so in the glittering Etihad era.

Philippe Coutinho

  • From: Barcelona
  • To: Aston Villa
  • Fee: £17m

Like a new Mercedes-Benz, Coutinho’s value started to plummet the minute Barcelona signed him. Always set to play a support role while lead character Lionel Messi was running the Camp Nou show, Coutinho was regularly shoehorned out of position and struggled to replicate the lofty heights of his Anfield career in Catalonia. A couple of loan spells later, and the pint-sized Brazilian has returned to the Premier League permanently. Steven Gerrard’s side have made his temporary stint a permanent one for just £17m, with Barca taking a £125m loss on the deal.

Karim Adeyemi

  • From: Red Bull Salzburg
  • To: Borussia Dortmund
  • Fee: £27m

BVB have returned to familiar hunting ground to replace Haaland, signing his Salzburg successor to be his Dortmund successor. Three-capped Germany international Karim Adeyemi is a frighteningly gifted forward who was confirmed a BVB player an hour after it was confirmed Haaland had joined City. That is certainly one way to soften the blow of losing an elite forward, signing another one a mere 52 minutes later.

Nico Schlotterbeck

  • From: SC Freiburg
  • To: Borussia Dortmund
  • Fee: £18m

Incredibly, Adeyemi is not the first player, nor the second (more on that next) through the door at Dortmund. Nico Schlotterbeck is considered one of the brightest German defenders coming up and has already been recognised at international level for his reputational ascent, earning two caps under Hansi Flick. The 22-year-old Freiburg centre-back confirmed his move to a Bundesliga rival earlier this month and will look to beef up a defence that has proven exceptionally volatile this campaign.

Niklas Sule

  • From: Bayern Munich
  • To: Borussia Dortmund
  • Fee: Free transfer

Wow. For once the shoe is on the opposite foot. Dortmund have actually managed to ‘do a Bayern’ on Bayern, weakening a Bundesliga rival by acquiring one of their better players. The acquisition of Niklas Sule on a free transfer is a mind-bogglingly ingenious piece of transfer business from Hans-Joachim Watzke and Co. Alongside, Schlotterbeck and Adeyemi, they have somewhat alleviated the departure of Haaland.

Matthias Ginter

  • From: Borussia Monchengladbach
  • To: SC Freiburg
  • Fee: Free transfer

Just as Dortmund sought to replace Haaland with Adeyemi, Freiburg have looked to replace the soon-to-be Dortmund defender Schlotterbeck with a familiar face. Matthias Ginter came through at the Breisgau Brazilians before joining Dortmund and then Monchengladbach and, at a deceptively young age of only 28, the 46-capped Germany international has gone full circle and will return to the Mooswaldstadion this summer upon the expiration of his current deal at Borussia-Park.

Fernando 

  • From: Shakhtar Donetsk
  • To: Red Bull Salzburg
  • Fee: Undisclosed fee

There is a familiar pattern here. So, just as Dortmund replaced Haaland with Adeyemi and Freiburg replaced Schlotterbeck with Ginter, the makers and shakers in Salzburg have replaced Adeyemi with Fernando. It only seemed like a matter of time before the precocious German left Austria, so in preparation, Die Roten Bullen have picked up Fernando from Shakhtar Donetsk. Given the situation in Ukraine, the Brazilian is actually training with the club at the minute, but he won’t be able to feature until next season.

Matt Turner

  • From: New England Revolution
  • To: Arsenal
  • Fee: £5.7m

Aaron Ramsdale was recently nominated for the Premier League Young Player of the Season award, but he will have fresh competition for his place this summer as 16-capped United States international Matt Turner joins the club, having confirmed his transfer back in February. Highly regarded across the pond, Turner is a formidable shot-stopper and will no doubt harbour aspirations of pushing Ramsdale for that No. 1 starting berth.

Federico Chiesa

  • From: Fiorentina
  • To: Juventus
  • Fee: £36m

Although he has turned out for Juventus for two years now, Chiesa is still technically a Fiorentina player. His two-season loan deal was put together in October 2020 and he will officially become an outright Old Lady this summer.

Lorenzo Insigne

  • From: Napoli
  • To: Toronto FC
  • Fee: Free transfer

Insigne agreed to join Toronto FC back in January when his present Napoli deal expires this summer. The diminutive Partenopei legend will bow out after 16 years of service for his boyhood club, joining the MLS outfit at only 30 years of age. His final home appearance at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium will be this Sunday, and it’s set to be an emotional showdown against Genoa.

Emre Demir

https://twitter.com/KayserisporFK/status/1441054815467999234

  • From: Kayserispor
  • To: Barcelona
  • Fee: £1.8m

In 2019, Emre Demir became the youngest goalscorer in Super Lig history when he scored against Genclerbirligi at the age of 15 years and 299 days. In total the teenager has featured 30 times in the Turkish top flight, and that remains his only goal. Naturally, a player with such alarming poise, flair and talent that belies his cherubic features caught the attention of several leading lights in Europe, and Barcelona confirmed his acquisition back in September.

Hee-chan Hwang

  • From: RB Leipzig
  • To: Wolves
  • Fee: £14m

Fittingly nicknamed “Bull” (Hwangso) in South Korea due to his robust, hard-nosed nature on the pitch, Hwang would go on to play for Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig, both nicknamed, you guessed it, the Red Bulls. However, his time at the latter proved difficult to accrue significant minutes on the turf, and he subsequently joined Wolves last summer on an initial loan, with the club activating a clause to sign him permanently back in January, with that transaction going through this summer.

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