Transfers You May Have Missed

Here we take a look at some transfer moves that you may have missed so far this summer with each club looking to improve their squad ahead of the 2023/24 season.

Timothy Weah, the 23-year-old son of African football legend and Ballon d'Or winner George Weah, has made somewhat of a surprise move to Juventus this summer and will become just the second American player currently on the Old Lady's books by doing so, with a reported fee of €10.3m being shelled out for the winger's services.

It is a strange move considering the fact that despite the need for reinforcements on the flanks, the club has decided to make a move for a player who has never bagged more than eight goals in a season in his senior career, and had a torrid 2022/23 season as he scored zero goals and bagged just two assists across 32 appearances.

With the Old Lady having already lost both Angel di Maria and Juan Cuadrado this summer, they really should have targeted a player who is much more proven and reliable than Weah. Juventus did receive £25m from Tottenham for winger Dejan Kulusevski as the Lilywhites have now made the Swede's loan move permanent - that money could have been spent on a much better player in a position where Juventus are severely lacking.

But, at 23, there is still plenty of time for Weah to show that he can be a top player like his father was - but based on the form that Weah has shown so far, this move is a strange one for a Juventus side who need reliable, top-quality players as they try to get back into the Champions League.

Edin Dzeko, the man who scored the equalising goal for Manchester City in that dramatic final-day 3-2 win over QPR at the Etihad Stadium in May 2012 to seal their first Premier League title in 44 years, is still going strong in European football at the age of 37.

Turkish giants Fenerbahce have now signed the Bosnian striker on a two-year deal which means that Dzeko will have now played in six different European leagues, and like he has done everywhere else during his career, it is very likely that Dzeko will further add to the 323 career goals he has already scored during his stay in Istanbul.

The writing seemed on the wall for the veteran striker when he scored a combined 12 goals over the course of the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons, but Dzeko showed that class is permanent by going on to score a total of 99 league goals over the following seven seasons with both Roma and Inter in Serie A, winning two Coppa Italias and two Supercoppa Italianas with the Nerazzurri. As he did in Germany with Wolfsburg, Dzeko now has the opportunity to lead an unfancied Fenerbahce side to a league title if he can carry on his clinical goalscoring ability, and don’t be at all surprised if he does.

It is going to be a summer of massive upheaval for Leicester City as they adjust to life back in the Championship for what will be the first time since the 2013/14 campaign.

The Foxes’ big-name players are all expected to leave – James Maddison already has for a fee of around £40m – whilst a whole slew of players are also set to depart the club on Bosman-free transfers. One of those players is towering centre-half Caglar Soyuncu, with the Turkish defender electing to join Spanish side Atletico Madrid on a four-year deal.

The move makes Soyuncu, after midfielder Youri Tielemans, the second player to leave the Foxes on a free transfer so far this summer. The Turk, who joined Leicester from German side Freiburg for £19m in 2018, leaves England with an FA Cup and Community Shield winners medal to his name, but his exit without the Foxes receiving a fee for him is a fine example of the poor work that has been going on behind the scenes at the club over recent seasons.

Houssem Aouar has been at Lyon his entire senior career and was seemingly being linked with an exit from the club almost every year, with reports linking the midfielder to a big-money Premier League move.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham were all touted, but no move ever materialised. Instead, Aouar continued to ply his trade with the club of his birth city year after year, but upon the expiry of his contract this summer, a free transfer to Jose Mourinho’s Roma in Serie A has quickly been agreed upon.

The French-born Algerian international has signed a five-year deal with last season’s Europa League runners-up, and will take the No.22 shirt. Having joined Lyon at the age of 11 and going on to make a total of 233 appearances for the club, the way Aouar had acted on occasion whilst agitating for a move away had left a bitter taste in the mouths of the Lyon faithful, but in a recent statement put out by the player, he has expressed regret for such behaviour.

At 25, Aouar is still relatively young and still has time on his side to reach the highs that many think he can hit in his career – but this is arguably the last chance saloon for the midfielder.

Croatian destroyer Marcelo Brozovic becomes the latest player to make the move to the Middle East with Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s employers reportedly paying an €18m transfer fee to bring the midfielder to the club.

Barcelona were also interested in signing the midfielder, but were unable or unwilling to match Al-Nassr’s offer, and so, almost certainly aided by the huge salary on offer, Brozovic has chosen to switch clubs for the first time since 2015 by making the move to one of Saudi football’s so-called “Big Four”.

It brings to an end what was a fruitful 8-year spell at the Nerazzurri for the Croatian, a time in which Brozovic picked up a Scudetto with the club alongside two Coppa Italias, two Supercoppa Italianas, as well as finishing as a runner-up in both the Champions League and Europa League in conjunction with fine international showings with his country in 2018 and 2022. The 30-year-old will now go on to enjoy the riches of a three-year deal in the fledgling Saudi Pro League.

Following the expiry of his contract at Ewood Park this season, a campaign in which the English-born Chilean striker bagged 16 goals and four assists in all competitions, Ben Brereton Diaz has completed a fairytale football transformation by making the jump from Lancashire and second-tier English football to the Castellon province of Spain, where he will play top-flight Spanish football with Villarreal, alongside Europa League commitments.

It caps a remarkable career turnaround for a player who only recently managed to score a combined two goals across the 2018/19 and 2019/20 Championship seasons. But something seemed to change in the 2020/21 campaign, when the forward scored seven in the league, a marked improvement on the previous seasons tallies, and this coincided with the emergence of Chilean national team interest in Diaz that November. Brereton Diaz would get his first call-up to the national side in 2021, and he hasn't looked back since, even going on to play in the 2021 Copa America.

The entire situation with his adoptive nation of Chile, including the initial interest and his surprise call-up, seems to have played a major role in transforming the striker's fortunes, as he went on to bag 22 league goals in 2021/22 and then hit 14 in the season just gone, signing off by scoring a brace in his final game.

Diaz has now joined the Yellow Submarine on a four-year deal, and he will have the chance to show his obvious talents on the European stage, which we have already seen flashes of during his time in England and on international duty.

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