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Who are the footballers whose transfer value is above €100 million? Issue number 152 of the Weekly Post unveils the excusive CIES Football Observatory list of the 100 big-5 league players with the highest values from a transfer fee perspective. Besides Lionel Messi, seven other footballers currently have a transfer value of more than €100 million.

According to the CIES Football Observatory algorithm, the players whose transfer could be negotiated at more than €100 million are Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Griezmann, Kane, Martial, Suárez and Dybala. More information on the criteria taken into account and the methodology used is provided in the 16th edition of the Monthly Report.

Since 2013, the correlation between the transfer values predicted by the CIES Football Observatory’s algorithm and the fees actually paid for the recruitment of big-5 league players has been close to 80%. The strength of this correlation shows that, on one hand, the footballers’ transfer market is rational and, on the other, that its rationality has been well understood by the econometric model developed.

Per position, the most expensive players from a transfer fee standpoint are Thibault Courtois among goalkeepers (€48.4 million), David Alaba among centre backs (€48.8 million), Hector Bellerín among full backs (€55.6 million), Paul Pogba among central midfielders (€90.4 million), Eden Hazard among attacking midfielders (€78.3 million) and Lionel Messi among forwards (€211.1 million).

The 16th Monthly Report of the CIES Football Observatory also presents the big-5 league players with the highest probability to be transferred for a sum of money. Among footballers with a transfer value of more than €25 million, the most likely to change team during next summer are Gonzalo Higuaín (€60.9 million), Alexandre Lacazette (€41.5 million), Michy Batshuayi (€25.2 million), Antoine Griezmann (€120.2 million) and Romelu Lukaku (€58.1 million).

For more information, please read issue number 16 of the Monthly Report. To contact us, please write at football.observatory@cies.ch

Issue number 151 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks big-5 league clubs according to the average transfer cost per player fielded. Leicester City was crowned despite the third lowest transfer expenditure at English Premier League level (€2.7 million per player). Conversely, Newcastle United could not avoid relegation despite having on average played with the 8th costliest line-up (€7.9 million per player).

In the four other major European championships, the most positive and negative gaps between the position in the transfer cost ranking and that achieved in the final table were measured for Las Palmas (+6) and Valencia (-9) in Spain; Angers (+8) and Marseille (-10) in France; Mainz (+10) and Hannover (-9) in Germany; as well as for Empoli (+7) and Palermo (-5) in Italy.

Overall, the team who fielded on average the most expensive line-up was Real Madrid (€32.2 million per player), followed by Manchester City (€27.5 million), Paris St-Germain (€27.0 million), Manchester United (€26.8 million) and Barcelona (€23.7 million). Champions League finalist Atlético Madrid ranks only 13th (€8.8 million).

David Silva heads the CIES Football Observatory table of the best performing big-5 league attacking midfielders. Manchester City’s Spaniard outranks Mesut Özil (Arsenal) and Henrik Mkhitaryan (Dortmund). In the top three positions for forwards are Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Zlatan Ibrahimovi? (Paris St-Germain) and Neymar (Barcelona). Issue number 150 of the Weekly Post presents the top 10 for both positions.

Following the CIES Football Observatory statistical approach, six English Premier League players are to be found among the ten best performing attacking midfielders of the season. However, only Adam Lallana is eligible for the Three Lions team. The best ranked EPL footballer among forwards, Alexis Sánchez, is only 14th. Cristiano Ronaldo is sixth behind the youngest footballer listed: Paulo Dybala (Juventus, 22 years).

The rankings are established according to six Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), among which take on, chance creation and shooting (see table). More information is available in the 15th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report. The study includes the rankings of players who out-performed the most their teammates, both per position and area of the game. This is particularly useful to unveil the potential of relatively unknown footballers

Last but not least, we also kindly invite you to visite our brand new version of our website.

According to the CIES Football Observatory analysis, Leicester City’s N’Golo Kanté is the best performing English Premier League defensive midfielder of the 2015/16 season. The French is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. This figure is three at box-to-box midfielder level: Moussa Dembélé (Tottenham, 1st), Dele Alli (Tottenham, 4th) and Yaya Touré (Manchester City, 5th). Paul Pogba (Juventus) ranks 6th. Only footballers who played at least 60% of domestic league minutes are included.

The youngest players in the top 10 lists are Julian Weigl (Dortmund) among defensive midfielders and Dele Alli among box-to-box ones. Both players are only aged 20. The list also features 21-year-old Saúl Ñíguez. Atlético Madrid’s rising star ranks third among box-to-box midfielders of the Spanish Liga behind two great champions: World Cup winners Toni Kroos (Real Madrid) and Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona).

The analysis is based on the statistics of players in six areas of the game, weighted according to their importance per position (see table). Two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for defenders: rigour and recovery. The former area defines the ability to minimise opponents’ chances through robust duelling. The latter highlights proficient interception work. Only players fielded for at least 60% of minutes are included in the rankings.

According to our approach, the best performing full back over the 2015/16 English Premier League season was Aleksandar Kolarov (Manchester City). The Serbian is the only EPL player in the top 10 positions. Besides Nicolás Otamendi, Mamadou Sakho (Liverpool) is 10th among centre backs. The youngest footballers in the lists are Ricardo Pereira (Nice, on loan from Porto) for full backs (4th) and Samuel Umtiti (Lyon) for centre backs (9th). They are both aged 22.