A season that began with a familiar rush of transfer announcements is ending with something more unusual: a complete re‑ranking of every one of the 189 signings made by Premier League clubs in 2025-26, ordered from worst to best.
The exercise, reported by the New York Times as a full list running through all 189 deals, turns the usual transfer conversation on its head. Instead of judging business on deadline‑day excitement or price tags alone, the project looks back across the campaign and asks which signings actually delivered, and which fell furthest short of expectations.
While the underlying methodology is not fully detailed in public reporting, the Times’ piece is presented as a season‑long reassessment of value and impact. Contextual coverage from ESPN, which has published its own 2025-26 Premier League awards including a “worst transfer” category, underscores how central this question of transfer success has become to how the season is remembered.
A full-season audit of 189 transfers
The New York Times describes its work as a re‑ranking of “all 189 Premier League transfers this season — from worst to best,” focusing on the 2025-26 campaign. That scope is unusually comprehensive. Rather than spotlighting only the most expensive or headline‑grabbing moves, the list takes in the entire set of incoming signings across the league.
By framing the piece explicitly as a re‑ranking, the Times positions it as a corrective to the judgments made last summer and during the winter window. The article revisits every deal with the benefit of a full season’s evidence: minutes played, performances, injuries, and how each player fit into their new club.
Context from ESPN’s season‑ending awards coverage reinforces this retrospective angle. ESPN’s reporting on the 2025-26 Premier League campaign includes categories such as “worst transfer” and a best XI, indicating that reassessing transfer business has become a standard part of post‑season analysis. The Times’ 189‑player list extends that logic from a handful of examples to the entire market.
What “worst to best” actually measures
The Times’ headline framing — “worst to best” — suggests a ranking that goes beyond simple cost or raw talent. While the article itself is paywalled and does not publicly spell out a formula, the combination of the Times’ event‑direct reporting and ESPN’s contextual awards coverage points to a few recurring themes in how 2025-26 transfers are being judged:
- On‑field contribution: ESPN’s awards discussion of “worst transfer” for 2025-26 is grounded in how little certain players contributed relative to their fees and expectations. That same logic likely informs the Times’ lower rankings.
- Value for money: Both outlets frame transfer success in terms of value, not just performance. A modest‑fee player who becomes a regular starter is treated differently from a marquee signing who struggles.
- Fit within the team: ESPN’s best XI and season reflections emphasize how well players slotted into tactical systems. The Times’ league‑wide re‑ranking, by covering all 189 deals, implicitly captures how many signings were peripheral rather than central.
What the public reporting does not provide are precise weights for these factors. There is no published scoring system or transparent criteria attached to each of the 189 positions in the list. Readers are instead asked to engage with the rankings as an informed but ultimately interpretive assessment of the 2025-26 transfer market.
Winners, losers and the shifting idea of a “good” transfer
Because the Times’ full list is behind a paywall and individual entries are not widely quoted, the identities of the single “best” and “worst” transfers in the 189‑strong ranking are not independently verifiable from the available public coverage. However, the existence of the list, combined with ESPN’s separate naming of a “worst transfer” in its awards package, highlights several broader patterns in how this Premier League season’s business is being talked about.
First, expensive signings are under sharper scrutiny. ESPN’s 2025-26 awards coverage notes that the season featured high‑profile transfers that did not meet expectations, and its “worst transfer” category focuses on players whose impact fell far short of their fees. The Times’ decision to rank all 189 transfers “from worst to best” gives those disappointments a clear place in a hierarchy, rather than treating them as isolated misfires.
Second, low‑cost or less heralded signings have gained new prominence. By including every transfer, the Times’ list creates room for players who arrived with little fanfare but proved crucial over the course of the season. ESPN’s best XI and awards coverage similarly highlight players whose performances outstripped their reputations at the time of signing.
Third, the re‑ranking underlines how quickly narratives can change. Deals that were widely praised in the summer of 2025 may now appear in the lower half of the list, while moves that drew little attention at the time could be ranked highly based on what actually happened on the pitch. That tension between expectation and outcome is at the heart of both the Times’ and ESPN’s post‑season coverage.
Why this re‑ranking matters beyond fan debate
On the surface, a 189‑player list might sound like fuel for online arguments. But the scale and timing of the Times’ project — arriving alongside ESPN’s own season awards and transfer reflections — suggests a deeper shift in how the Premier League’s transfer market is being evaluated.
First, it reflects the centrality of transfers to how the 2025-26 season is understood. ESPN’s awards package, which includes categories for best and worst transfers as well as a best XI, treats recruitment decisions as one of the main lenses through which the campaign is judged. The Times’ decision to devote a full feature to re‑ranking every signing reinforces that idea.
Second, it may influence how clubs and agents talk about deals. While there is no direct evidence in the current reporting that teams are changing strategies because of this specific list, public rankings of all 189 transfers create a shared reference point for discussions about success and failure. Players and their representatives know that their moves are being compared not just within a club, but across the entire league.
Third, the re‑ranking provides fans with a structured way to revisit the season. Rather than relying on vague impressions, readers can see how one major outlet orders the full set of 2025-26 transfers. ESPN’s awards coverage offers a parallel, more selective view, highlighting standout successes and failures. Together, these pieces contribute to a more data‑conscious, retrospective culture around the Premier League.
What to watch next
The immediate next step is how this re‑ranking is received and debated. Over the coming days and weeks, discussion among supporters, commentators and analysts is likely to focus on which of the 189 placements they agree or disagree with, especially around players ESPN has already spotlighted in its 2025-26 awards coverage.
Looking ahead to the next transfer window, attention will turn to whether clubs’ public messaging around new signings reflects the themes highlighted in this season’s reassessments. While there is no firm evidence yet that recruitment strategies are shifting because of the Times’ list or ESPN’s awards, the prominence of these evaluations means that future deals may be discussed from day one in terms of how they might look in a similar end‑of‑season ranking.
For readers, the key indicators to watch are simple: how often this 189‑transfer re‑ranking is cited in off‑season analysis, and whether subsequent coverage of the 2025-26 campaign continues to frame the year through the lens of transfer hits and misses. Those reactions will help show how much influence a single, comprehensive reassessment can have on the story the Premier League tells about itself.
