Sportskeeda's list of 10 most expensive defenders of all time
Already in the 2017 summer transfer window, Romelu Lukaku and Alexandre Lacazette have made moves for absurd transfer fees, joining Manchester United and Arsenal respectively. As absurd as these financial figures are, it is the norm in modern day football.
Most of the clubs out there are regularly breaking their own transfer records in an attempt to keep up with the competition. While the majority of clubs spend the bulk of their budget on attacking players, it is not uncommon for defenders to move for large sums of money.
Especially nowadays, where full-backs are an important part of a team’s attacking unit and top quality centre-backs are hard to find, clubs are demanding higher transfer fees to part ways with their top defensive players.
In fact, the transfer record for a defender was broken in the ongoing transfer window itself.
With that in mind, let’s look at the 10 most expensive defenders of all time, according to transfermarkt.co.uk.
Jose Mourinho’s first transfer business as Manchester United manager was to pay over £30 million for Villarreal’s Eric Bailly. The Ivorian quickly became the first choice centre-back at United and earned a lot of praise for his performances in his first PL season.
Like Shaw, Bailly is still very young for a defender at 23-years old and looks like a very wise, long-term investment for the Red Devils