Man City’s Palmer joins Chelsea - Most expensive English midfield talent behind Bellingham

Manchester City’s academy is increasingly becoming a goldmine. The next homegrown talent to be sold by the Citizens is midfielder Cole Palmer, who joins Premier League rivals Chelsea on a seven-year deal with a club option of a further year. The England U21 international, who has been part of Pep Guardiola’s squad for the past two years, will reportedly cost an initial fee of €47 million plus €6m in possible add-ons.

Palmer made 41 appearances for Man City, in which he played 1,482 minutes and was directly involved in eight goals. The attack-minded midfielder also featured on the wings both in England’s U21s and at the European treble winners. The 21-year-old pushes Chelsea’s transfer spending to around €464m. That sum is a new record for a summer transfer window. In comparison of English midfield talents, only Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid) commanded a higher transfer fee, and internationally, just four U21 midfielders were more expensive.

The fact that Chelsea are happy to pay a lot for U23 players has been part of the football world since July 2022. Man City have been developing top talents and selling them for high fees for some time. Palmer would be the most expensive homegrown talent from the academy to date, which in the past six years alone has produced players such as Jadon Sancho (Man Utd), Jeremie Frimpong (Bayer Leverkusen), Roméo Lavia (Chelsea), Brahim Díaz (Real Madrid), Ivan Ilic (Torino), Felix Nmecha (Borussia Dortmund), Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (Borussia Dortmund), Lukas Nmecha (Wolfsburg), and goalkeepers James Trafford (Burnley), Gavin Bazunu (Southampton) and Arijanet Muric (Burnley).

These are just the talents that have left Man City. Phil Foden, Rico Lewis, James McAtee and loan players Taylor Harwood-Bellis (Southampton) and Callum Doyle (Leicester) are all still under contract with the English champions, among others.