5) Nemanja Matic (Benfica to Chelsea – £21m)

There were a lot of players we considered for this fifth spot, including the likes of Ruben Dias, Rui Patricio and even David Luiz but Matic’s move to Chelsea in 2014 coincided with a period of success for the Blues.

The Serbian won his first league title under Jose Mourinho in his first season back in England, while he won his second championship just two years later with Antonio Conte.


David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.