The Premier League was active during this year’s winter transfer window despite eight clubs not making a permanent transfer. The league spent a total of £403million, with Manchester City, who made four first-team signings, contributing 44 per cent (£178m) of that amount.
Throughout the winter window, The Athletic ranked the major transfers across the league out of 500, split into 10 categories worth 50 each. This was a revised version of the model used last summer, which involved five categories worth 100 points each, to add more nuance and different angles to viewing a transfer.
By adding more categories, we aimed to go a step further, but the number of external factors influencing the success of a transfer means — obviously — there is still room for error.
GO DEEPER
The Athletic 500: What we learned and why we’ve changed our transfer scoring system
Below is a complete list of the ratings from the 2025 winter window.
The table can be sorted by overall score or by each of the individual categories (and click ‘show more’ to see the full list).
Nico Gonzalez, who joined City from Porto on deadline day on a deal worth €60m (£49.9m, $62m) is rated highest with a rating of 369. Romain Esse (Millwall to Crystal Palace), Antonin Kinsky (Slavia Prague to Tottenham Hotspur) and Omar Marmoush (Eintracht Frankfurt to City) are closely behind. Esse, Kinsky and Marmoush all impressed in their first few games, though Kinsky, like his new team-mates, has hit a rough patch.
At the other end, Wayne Hennessey (Nottingham Forest), Matai Akinmboni (DC United to Bournemouth) and Ben Chilwell (Chelsea to Palace on loan) ranked the lowest. Akinmboni and Kayi Sanda — both youngsters with no European top-flight experience — are yet to make their senior debuts for their clubs, while Chilwell ranked poorly in several metrics due to a lack of playing time at Chelsea. Hennessey, meanwhile, has not played a club match since May 2023.
Marmoush was notably the only player to score 20 or more in each of the 10 categories.
Will Marmoush prove to be a good signing for Manchester City? (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
With respect to tactical fit, Chilwell and Evan Ferguson (Brighton & Hove Albion to West Ham United on loan) were deemed the best fits for their new clubs with scores of 45 and 43, respectively.
Chilwell is an obvious answer to Palace’s lack of options outside of Tyrick Mitchell at left wing-back. Ferguson reunited with Graham Potter, who brought the best out of him at Brighton and has employed a similar system in his early weeks at West Ham.
One of the marquee signings of the window, Marcus Rashford (Manchester United to Aston Villa on loan), ranked the lowest in tactical fit with a score of 28. The early suggestions were that Rashford would operate alongside or instead of Ollie Watkins with his preferred left-wing spot taken by in-form Morgan Rogers. Villa’s 2-1 FA Cup win over Tottenham showed that they could utilise Rashford well off the bench against tired legs.
How Marcus Rashford fits into the Villa XI remains to be seen but he remains a huge talent (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
The winter window is often used to address gaps in the squad created due to injuries during the season or sales forced by profit and sustainability rules.
Wolverhampton Wanderers had issues at centre-back following the departure of Maximilian Kilman in the summer and Yerson Mosquera’s season-ending anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. That meant the January arrival of Emmanuel Agbadou from Stade Reims ranked the highest in the ‘gap-filling’ category along with their deadline day signing of Nasser Djiga from Crvena Zvezda.
Right-back Michael Kayode (Fiorentina to Brentford on loan) was next. Thomas Frank’s team loaned Mads Roerslev to Wolfsburg in January, while Aaron Hickey remains out after undergoing hamstring surgery, making Kayode’s arrival a necessity. Axel Disasi (Chelsea to Villa on loan) ranked next, with Villa selling Diego Carlos to Fenerbahce this winter, while Gonzalez and Kinsky (signed after Guglielmo Vicario’s ankle injury) were close behind.
Disasi ranked the highest in “rival impact” too, having attracted interest from Tottenham on deadline day before ultimately joining Villa. He was followed by Marmoush (linked with clubs across Europe), Mathys Tel (who rejected Spurs, was linked with Manchester United and then ended up joining Spurs on loan) and Kevin Danso (linked with Wolves before signing for Spurs from Lens). On the flip side, Woyo Coulibaly (Parma to Leicester City), Alex Palmer (West Bromwich Albion to Ipswich Town) and Andres Garcia (Levante to Villa) were all signed with their clubs facing little to no competition.
Mathys Tel moved to Tottenham Hotspur, eventually (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Recent form favoured City’s new signings, with Marmoush (20 goals and 14 assists this season for Frankfurt) and Gonzalez (seven goals and six assists for Porto) thriving in the first half of 2024-25. On the other hand, Ben Godfrey (Atalanta to Ipswich on loan), Chilwell, Tel, Julio Enciso (Brighton to Ipswich on loan), and Ferguson had played only 800 league minutes combined prior to their moves.
All of that created a diverse transfer window for the Premier League, with clubs taking advantage of market opportunities to bring in short-term cover, long-term prospects, and everything in between.
Now we wait for the inevitable deluge of signings that will take place once the summer window opens on Thursday, June 12…
