The top 10 transfers of the summer, including Chelsea bargain and perfect fit for Arsenal

The summer sales are over and it’s time to see which Premier League clubs have spent most wisely.

Who nabbed a bargain? Were your team implicated in a daylight robbery, or have they been sold down the river?

It’s way too early to tell, but that hasn’t stopped us rushing to judgment and picking out our ten favourite deals.

Bruno Guimaraes, Arsenal

Arsenal spent the summer chasing a marquee signing but while Vinicius Jr eluded them, his Brazil team-mate seems much more up their street anyway. A 30-minute cameo at Villa on Monday showcased the kind of incisive line-breaking passes this Gunners team haven’t really had before.

But Bruno’s leadership and more combative qualities, epitomised by his captaincy of Newcastle’s dogs of war, are ones Mikel Arteta’s men already boast in abundance. The rich just keep getting richer.

Julio Enciso, Ipswich

A mercurial South American No.10 who excelled at the World Cup is the archetypal disastrous signing for a club likely to be fighting for survival. And yet no one who saw Enciso’s extraordinary off-ball industry in Paraguay’s shock summer win over Germany will have any doubts about his willingness to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in to a seemingly lost cause.

The opening week of the season has also showcased his ability, with the 22-year-old creating two of Ipswich’s four goals so far.

Ayyoub Bouaddi, Manchester City

Sometimes it only takes a moment. Watching this teenager casually run the midfield for Morocco in their World Cup game with Brazil was enough to convince me he’s a future great. It could be a flash in the pan but a Champions League debut at 16 and 63 Ligue 1 games before his 19th birthday suggest otherwise.

The young man team-mates call ‘Einstein’ is combining his football with remote studies for a degree in mathematics. Rodri leaves huge boots to fill at the Etihad but you suspect it’s a prospect that won’t faze Bouaddi.

Mamadou Sangare, Brentford

The Bees have done it again, haven’t they? It took one midfield masterclass (against Spurs, admittedly) for fans of big-six clubs spending huge money on all manner of sixes and eights to ask ‘hang on, why didn’t we buy him?’.

At £41m from a Lens side who pushed PSG close for the French title, signing Sangare was hardly like finding a pebble on a beach but the way the 24-year-old Mali man ran the show against Tonali and co was particularly eye-catching.

Victor Munoz, Liverpool

Liverpool’s big bucks went on Bradley Barcola but, as Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak showed last season, that is no guarantee of success. Munoz cost under £40m from the modest La Liga surroundings of Osasuna and was an unused substitute in Spain’s successful World Cup tilt.

Any suggestion of rust was dispelled when the flame-haired winger came off the bench to win a vital late penalty in the draw at Newcastle, then celebrated his first start with a lovely turn and smart finish in the stalemate with Nottingham Forest. An encouraging start.

Emi Martinez, Chelsea

Plenty has been made of the many deals done between Aston Villa and Chelsea in recent seasons and £7.5million for one of the Premier League’s most reliable goalkeepers certainly raises eyebrows.

The one position Chelsea have refused to invest heavily in during the BlueCo era has remained their one glaring area of weakness. In World Cup-winner Martinez they’ve probably managed to fix it while again avoiding serious expense.

Thomas Meunier, Sunderland

Nothing flashy about this one but, at 6ft 3in tall and with the stamina to get up and down the right flank, Meunier is made for the Premier League. The only surprise is that it’s taken the right-back from Belgium’s ‘golden generation’ until near his 35th birthday to get here.

Is it too late? Possibly. but Meunier arrived on Teesside on a free and Granit Xhaka proved last season Sunderland has the infrastructure in place for quality players seemingly in the twilight of their careers to thrive.

Mateus Fernandes, Tottenham

What to make of Roberto De Zerbi’s supermarket sweep? Not much on early evidence. So picking out a man whose two previous Premier League campaigns have both ended in relegation seems a bit perverse. But there’s something about Fernandes.

It’s there in the unfussy way he receives and passes the ball in tight spaces, seemingly unfazed by the chaos happening around him. Qualities which will come in handy at Spurs this season.

Nico Gonzalez, Newcastle

We are slaves to premature opinions in the first days of September, but don’t look Newcastle look so much more refreshed and inspired than in the dying months of the Howe era? Matthias Jaissle cuts a confident jib on the touchline, they play with real purpose and the early signs are their recruitment has been very good.

Lukas Hornicek looks dominant in goal, Amar Dedic a tireless presence on the right flank and Sean Steur a precocious midfield talent. Gonzalez is the one new arrival with Premier League experience and, in the win at Tottenham, it showed. The Spaniard slotted straight in just days after arriving on Tyneside, controlling the tempo and nonchalantly pinging cross-field bombs to ignite attacks.

Konstantinos Tzolakis, Hull

Two teams have yet to concede a goal in the top flight so far this season. One are the defending champions with three-time Golden Glove winner David Raya in goal. The other rely on Tzolakis to keep the opposition at bay. Hull’s pre-season prospects were so bleak they were being measured up for the all-time dunce’s cap currently worn by 2009 Derby County.

Instead they have six points and two clean sheets, with their 23-year-old Greek custodian, a club-record signing from Olympiakos, looking the pick of an excellent recruitment class.

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