Ligue 1 carries the tagline “The League of Talents”, which is pretty much their only claim to fame now that PSG have completely unbalanced the league from a competitive standpoint due to Qatar’s ridiculous spending power.
Perhaps Roberto De Zerbi can shift that paradigm with some smart underdog coaching at Marseille after previously turning Brighton into a Europa League side after they toiled in the Premier League mid-table for years.
Ligue 1 may not be the most competitive league, but it’s still producing top talents who fetch a pretty penny on the transfer market. Look no further than center back Leny Yoro, who joined Manchester United this summer from Lille for over 60 million euros after pretty much every big club wanted to sign him.
The Premier League has always been a destination for Ligue 1 clubs hoping to turn their top talents into profits, and while Monaco’s biggest prize of the 2010s, Kylian Mbappe, stayed in the French top division, pretty much everyone else from those great Champions League sides landed in England.
So let’s take a look back at the 2010’s and rank the 10 most expensive transfers to go from Ligue 1 to the Premier League during that time span, using Transfermarkt data for the official monetary values.
It really does stand out how good Monaco are at selling players. They are in a bracket with Benfica, except, for the most part, the players Monaco produce are quality footballers.
Not everyone landed, like Bakayoko and Martial, but players like Bernardo Silva and Fabinho were bedrock players for perennial Premier League title contenders. And speaking of Silva, you really have to say that he was the best deal of anyone on this list – and it’s not particularly close.
Also, a collective laugh at Chelsea. They spent around 80 million euros on two players who were less than footnotes in their history across the 2010s and 2020s.
10. Michy Batshuayi from Marseille to Chelsea for 39 million euros
9. Tiemoue Bakayoko from Monaco to Chelsea for 40 million euros
8. Fabinho from Monaco to Liverpool for 45 million euros
7. Youri Tielemans from Monaco to Leicester City for 45 million euros
6. Bernardo Silva from Monaco to Manchester City for 50 million euros
5. Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon to Arsenal for 53 million euros
4. Benjamin Mendy from Monaco to Manchester City for 57.5 million euros
3. Anthony Martial from Monaco to Manchester United for 60 million euros
2. Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon to Tottenham for 62 million euros
1. Nicolas Pepe from Lille to Arsenal for 80 million euros
Ah, Nicolas Pepe. It’s easy to get so caught up in the “Farmer’s League” rhetoric regarding Ligue 1 that you could easily forget just how good Pepe was for Lille in the 2018/19 season before he joined Arsenal for that eye-watering fee.
Pepe actually scored more goals that season for Lille than Eden Hazard did before he moved to the Premier League. And in fairness to Pepe, he did manage to score 10 goals in a season for the Gunners before flaming out at Nice and then going to the Turkish Super Lig.
Funnily enough, Pepe is back in a top five league with Villarreal, but it’s wild to see how he went from an 80 million euro transfer and a 20-goal, left-footed right winger to being someone virtually everyone has forgotten about.
In the end, Bayern Munich were right for not viewing Pepe as good enough in the same summer they were looking for a replacement for left-footed right winger Arjen Robben.
Well, at least Arsenal got Lacazette right.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. His work has been featured in ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, and other major outlets. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.